Random part of the day: Plate 1X1 Round W/ Horizontal 3.2 Shaft

I think you should be worried when its that large proportionally. It'd be really hard to balance that, although Lego had the neat idea of putting a little notch underneath wear they meet, so the 1x1 part has more leverage.

Just a few minutes ago, I was thinking about subbing these in on a set of MOCs I've been tweaking, but I don't think the recessed stud would be sturdy enough, compared to a hollow stud.

Also, it doesn't come in white. I'll have to stick with robot claws for now.

I love the way this was used in the toy airplane in 10270. It occurs to me that one could stick part 28661 in trans-light blue in that pinhole to make a decent spigot.

@TheOtherMike said:
"I love the way this was used in the toy airplane in 10270. It occurs to me that one could stick part 28661 in trans-light blue in that pinhole to make a decent spigot."

I miss the old tap pieces. Why did LEGO make them solid?

Can ya dig it?

Hella useful

A very versatile piece this.

@Norikins:
Was the hole in the original tap compatible with anything, or was it just for show? The people who manage the part designs are tasked with making sure stuff either fits within strict dimensional tolerances, or isn't close enough to "sorta work". They don't want people calling up to complain that they put something in the tap's hole and it won't _quite_ grip, or worse, that it broke off inside when they tried to remove it.

This piece has completely changed the way I do landing gear. I love it!

@Lance_McCormick said:
"Can ya dig it?"
My guess is yes you can!

@Norikins: Absolutely. Even taking into account what @PurpleDave said, they could have altered the hole to make it fit.

@TheOtherMike:
Oh, absolutely! 1x plates and tiles used to have solid bars for clutch, but at some point those were changed so there’s a hole in the center that’s compatible with hatpins. Now you can make them look like they’re on fire. The Classic Space air tank used to have an odd size hole in the actual tanks, and now it’s compatible with bars (works great if you want to pose Benny like he’s floating off the ground).

Isn’t this one known as the “espresso” piece?

I mean it's no krydsblok...

When I look at this I'm always reminded of coming across a similar, simpler part in about 2008 in a bag of random second hand parts. It was not from lego.
And I thought: of course not! Lego doesn't make parts like that!
Cue this part years later. I alway wonder what the point is of all the complex grooves. And I wonder if whoever designed it knew of the non-lego part. Probably not, given the previous question.

Aka the cappuccino maker bar

This can get so incredibly useful for diagonal building. See 10497

@PurpleDave said:
" @TheOtherMike :
Oh, absolutely! 1x plates and tiles used to have solid bars for clutch, but at some point those were changed so there’s a hole in the center that’s compatible with hatpins. Now you can make them look like they’re on fire. The Classic Space air tank used to have an odd size hole in the actual tanks, and now it’s compatible with bars (works great if you want to pose Benny like he’s floating off the ground)."

I dont think its ever been consistent whether the pins on the underside of 1x plates have holes in them. Im pretty sure Ive been seeing variability even within a single set from the moment the holes first appeared to today.

@PurpleDave: Yeah, i remember being so frustrated as a kid that I couldn't attach anything to the bottom of those air tanks. But now, I can attach flame pieces to them to make a Rocketeer-style jetpack!

@jkb said:
"This can get so incredibly useful for diagonal building. See 10497"

Agreed! I was very surprised and impressed by how it was used in 10497 to anchor the sides and make them line up perfectly with the angle plates!

@TheOtherMike said:
" @PurpleDave: Yeah, i remember being so frustrated as a kid that I couldn't attach anything to the bottom of those air tanks. But now, I can attach flame pieces to them to make a Rocketeer-style jetpack!"

I hope you realize open flames + pure oxygen tanks = big boom. Just ask Apollo 13 about that.

@Binnekamp:
The grooves on this? I don’t have one handy, but I’ve examined this part quite a bit, so here’s what I remember. It starts with a 1x1 round plate. I don’t know if the bar allows you to pinch it between four studs like a regular round plate, but the base theoretically has that compatibility. The stud is recessed instead of either solid or hollow (I think most would prefer hollow, but recessed does create a stop that occasionally comes in handy).

The bar is vertically offset. We know from when they changed the Classic Space 1x2 “laser plate” to lower the bars, that this allows the bars to line up better with other parts. I would assume this is the intent here as well, even though they raised it instead of lowering it. Because they raised it, it creates a major stress point right at the base of the bar, so the “wattle” is there to reinforce this point. It’s two ridges instead of one so it doesn’t cause the part to dimple as it cools. The top of this connection now has to be pocketed so you can stack two with the bars aligned and they don’t intersect (which probably required some back-and-forth tweaking of the size of the reinforcement and pocket). Finally, someone decided it’d be cool to put a hole in the end of the bar that accepts a hatpin. The end result will allow seven different connections, which is about the highest density of connection points I can recall.

@magmafrost:
Some part changes render old molds obsolete, like when they discover a design flaw that needs to be fixed. These extra holes on the underside save a tiny bit of plastic (while making the mold more expensive and complex), but it doesn’t look like they’re really _fixing_ anything. If they need to have four molds in service at any given time, they’d probably just wait until each mold reaches the end of its service life and make the update on the replacement, meaning they could produce one variant today, the other variant later this week, and back to the first variant a week from now.

@TheOtherMike:
Someone in my LUG posted an image to our list, but I have no idea where it was obtained. It shows Benny standing in front of a couple other minifigs, with jets of flame shooting out of his airtanks, and resulting in some unexpected consequences (I won’t spoil it, in case someone recognizes, and can provide a link to, the image I described).

@Murdoch17: That wasn't an open flame, it was a spark.

@PurpleDave said:
" I don’t know if the bar allows you to pinch it between four studs like a regular round plate, but the base theoretically has that compatibility."

I just tested it, and you can.

@TheOtherMike:
And I just realized this part could be a key component in a MOC I just got an idea for yesterday at work. That’s not to say I’ve never used it, but I don’t think I’ve had any opportunity to build articulated limbs with it yet. The fact that it’s available in black will solve a big problem I was facing. I wanted to use Mixel joints, but I didn’t want to build in grey.

This piece was a game-changer!

@TheOtherMike said:
" @Murdoch17: That wasn't an open flame, it was a spark.

@PurpleDave said:
" I don’t know if the bar allows you to pinch it between four studs like a regular round plate, but the base theoretically has that compatibility."

I just tested it, and you can."

Open flame, single spark, what's the difference? Either way, you'll be cleaning bits of Benny off your spacesuit for many lunar cycles after that test flight.

@Murdoch17:Well, that'd be your own stupid fault, wouldn't it? Considering I suggested using it as a jetpack, not as an oxygen tank. If you confuse the two, that's on you.