There have been a number of Technic cranes over the years, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. It's not an easy job to design a model that shows the sheer scale of these machines, is somewhat realistic, has a good size, not overly gigantic, and makes good use of parts. I am happy to report that this model, while not perfect by all measures, gets a lot of things right and actually ranks towards the top of this pack.

I am pleased that the box for the set is just the right size and does not leave much empty space inside. There are some stickers also, although they don't add much to the aesthetics of the model. The set comes with one thick instruction booklet with glued pages protected in a plastic bag. The nice part about it is that it has a luxurious feel to it with its thicker covers while getting away with spreading instructions over a multitude of flimsy booklets. The downside is that the pages don't lay flat. Also, this is an extremely thick booklet for a model of this size - it contains almost 240 pages! One hand, I get it: Non-studded construction tends to unravel in all directions from inside out requiring more explanation. On the other hand: Is it really necessary to have baby steps for attaching a single pin or full two-page spreads showing an obvious reorientation of the construction? I can't help but think that LEGO could easily cut the number of steps and the size of the instruction booklet in half without losing clarity. The Technic-s of the 90s were able to provide great instructions for complex builds in far, far fewer steps. And yes, they were satisfying! Take note, LEGO!

The first part of the build focusses on the tracked base of the model. It features lots of repetitive steps and a rather simple gear mechanism. Still, it does produce a solid base for the model with large area, almost square dimensions. The build picks up pace with the superstructure where a delightfully complex gear clutch mechanism takes shape. The final act of building the boom arm is most exciting. The boom quickly grows in size, the model takes the shape of a crane, the pulleys get attached, and it springs to life.

In terms of looks, I think the model is quite nice. I like the blue color scheme, the pulleys, the balanced weight. The crane is huge for the number of parts in it. The boom arm is good length once the third module gets attached. I would say that this is the right size for a Technic flagship. I find the later supergiant Technic flagship models too much - they make for good curiosities stretching the envelope of a Technic model size, yet seem rather impractical for most home settings.

The crawler crane packs a good number of functions all driven by a single motor. The two levers controller in the back of the superstructure is fairly simple to learn and works well. The tracks movement and superstructure turning are reasonably responsive. On the other hand, the boom and claw operation is unnecessarily over-leveraged and sluggish. I guess that the model is supposed to represent a large real world crane and the relative speed of the winches is probably realistic in that regard. It's just that it's not much fun to play with a model that takes forever to lift something in the air. The claw itself is reasonably designed. While not terribly realistic, it does operate smoothly and provides a good amount of weight to tension the strings of the boom and balance the model. The strings themselves are nice quality strong smooth braided nylon that feel great on the model.

It is ok in this model that the tracks cannot be controlled independently and it cannot make a turn. However, one must note that without any shock absorption mechanism, the whole model jerks when it moves on the tracks. It is a characteristic of the rigid Technic tracks that is present to some degree in all of their tracked models. It just so happens that the height of the model and the slower speed of track movement make it all more visible.

I cannot comment much on the secondary model. However, I will note that it is another tracked crane that does not appear to be distinct enough from the primary model to motivate us to disassemble it. The designers could have used more imagination in developing it - there are a number of other machines that one can build with track elements and strings. I guess, from Technic's perspective it's the model on the front of the box that makes the sale, so they don't put that much effort into the one on the back. If I were to guess, they simply used one of the prototypes of the model that they were experimenting with as the alternate which seems lame.

Overall, despite some shortcomings, 42042 is a worthy addition to the Technic cranes family. There is a lot to like about its old school Technic feel - nice looks, functionality, use of parts, and size. It demonstrates the construction and operation of arm and pulley mechanisms quite well. I wish the lifting of the grabber and boom arm were more responsive. It would also have been nice if the designers had offered a more distinct secondary model.

This set has 1,401 parts and is a very fun build. I have the motor in this model and the crane will move forward, backwards, side to side and the crane itself will go up and down. You can lift other things with the crane too. I bought this set used and the former owner had put it together one time and displayed the crane. The parts were in excellent condition and the book was like new. The instruction book is excellent. I would recommend this set.

I am not going to repeat what other reviewers have said. This review is intended to augment or update what they have written.

Box/Instructions

My instructions did not come garbled, or with some pages reversed. Shipped from Lego, it appears that they have now fixed that problem.

For the most part, the instructions were easy. But after so many pages, I missed the 1x3 white plates in the rear of the gearbox and had to go back to re-add them.

Parts

• More treads than you will probably ever need.
• Abundant blue technic parts and panels
• Complete Power Functions capabilities with a motor and ample gearbox parts.
• A few oddball white parts that are not numerous enough for a full model of anything, nor in pairs to allow for symmetry.

The build

Slow and steady. My biggest complaint is not so much with the build, as with what it takes to unbuild. The model uses 5M cross-axles with stop ends and 3M cross-axles to attach the tread modules to the base. Undoing this requires that you take a short (3M or 4M) cross-axle and use it to push out the 5Ms, which are between the treads, underneath the model. This is exacerbated by the fact that the complete model is massive, so you can't just pick it up and do this. You need to prop it on something, drape the boom part over something, let the strings get tangled up a bit while you work, and then you can - with a lot of effort - get these 5M ended cross-axles out.

Other than that, the build is pretty good. It makes use of a lot of "push-in" style construction, such as using 3M pegs or 3M pegs with cross axles or cross axle holes to combine modules (as it does so with the expander boom module).

The most tedious part of the build is assembling the treads. There are 90 pieces here, so your fingers are going to get sore.

The most complicated part of the build - in my opinion - is dealing with the strings and dangling parts as you complete final assembly on the boom and tie off the string to the attachment ball.

The most delicate part of the build is attaching the exterior blue plating to the gear module. You have to match a bunch of pins and push a fairly large module onto what is already a large base.

The completed model

Outstanding. Looks great. PLAYS great. One reviewer commented on the jerkiness of motion when going forward or backward. I don't think this is gears skipping so much as just elasticity and slack in the drive train. I actually like the jerkiness of the motion - I think it adds to it, just as a real treaded vehicle can be jerky when moving on a hard surface such as asphalt.

The gearing is pushing the limits of what power and torque the motor can bear. Movement is slow for all functions except rotation (slew?), which is *almost* too fast... but not quite.

A lot of reviews bash the claw. I actually tried to use it to pick up some small Lego models lying around on the floor, and it worked great. I do wish it was motorized, but understand how much complexity that would have added.

The lack of steering is a big drawback to playability. I took it upon myself to add a small set of gears and a transmission lever to the base so that I can run both treads in the same direction, just one of the treads (with the other in neutral), or both treads in opposite directions. My gearing turns out not to be strong enough to handle the reverse-direction configuration on carpeted surfaces because I get some gear-skipping. But it otherwise works pretty well. I do recommend considering making a similar change to improve playability if you intend to play with this model. And if you do... do so before you add the gearing module and treads to the rest of the base. It will be much easier to work with.

Overall opinion

I have a bunch of old Expert Builder sets, and also the Technic MK II Crane (42009), the racing motor cycle and this one. This set has much better playability than the Crane for a variety of reasons:

• The motor moves the whole model.
• The gearbox can be used to reverse each action direction, without switching the powerbox.
• It does not feel as if the parts are over-strained, as it did with the MK II.
• It isn't so big as to be cumbersome to play with.

As for aesthetics, this model looks just as good as the motorcycle, given what it is. You expect to see a lot of internal workings on a piece of heavy machinery, and with this model you do, but things are kind of where they should be with the winches on top, the motor an gears inside, etc, and the Technic plating does a decent job of emulating real-world sheetmetal. Some of the other Technic models using such plating look more fudged in my opinion.

Have fun with this one. Add steering to improve playability. Add other modules to replace the claw if you wish. Lengthen the boom if you like (it's easy, as long as the string is long enough), and then go play!

Box

I did not have the box. I build the model from my parts. I only had to order a few since there are not many unique parts, mostly the curved panels and some extra liftarms.

Instructions

The book is nice and thick. There are only very few occasions where it has 2 mirrored elements in a separate series of steps. I prefer to be informed about this and build the two mirrored elements at the same time. Problem is instructions are written for 5 year olds even when a set shows age 11-16 on the box. I really prefer studded-technic manuals as they are less "dumb". So lets have this built by my 5 year old son, for him modern style instructions are great...

Parts

The set contains very few special parts. It just contains a big amount of some. To build this from other sets, you will be short of blue 15 and 7 hole beams (40 and 27!), small grey rims (you need 28!) and small 1+2 number blue wing panels (6 and 5 pieces used). You also need a few rare parts like the "flag" to keep the wires from choking up the gears, the cylinder to put up the cabin and, 4 grey cross axles with eyes and off course the 4 new blue curved panels.

If you buy it, you will like the blue curved panels, blue wings and tons of blue liftarms.

The build

It is a very nice to build crawler crane. It takes about 5 hours, there is not too much repetation and the base and gear box are awesome. The only little tricky thing is to put the cable in the right position.

The completed model

The crane looks terrific. It is huge, it looks very industrial, stickers are totally not needed as the colour scheme and shape is very impressive already.

Playability is great. I never saw Lego make such an excellent gearbox before. Usually you have to mess with the awkward battery box switch to change directions. Here all directions can be controlled mechanically! Yet the gear box is still pretty compact. Awesome engineering! It has the WOW of the 8043 when it comes to controls.

Issues

The gripper is pretty awkward. Almost nothing fits in. It limits playability. You probably better change it for a regular hook. The operation is also too slow, you need to many turns to open it.

The new turntable is worse than the old. It might be a little stiffer, but that does not matter in this build as the upper part slides on a frame in the base. What really annoys is that LEGO changed the outer gear to a beveled one. If you use it with a 90 degree gear to drive it, like this model does, it will constantly slip if there is a load on the crane. With the old parallel driving gear you never had this problem. So turning around with a load is almost impossible.

Besides I don't like to have the huge weight of the upper part slide on liftarms in the base. It really ruins your bricks with circular scratches. The 42009 crane had a similar problem. Maybe we need an even larger turntable.

I miss the option to steer the base. It makes sense Lego thought 4 functions are killer already, yet in the 8043 they managed coaxial drive of the base!

Conclusion

The issues are very minor though, and most can be fixed. What remains is a huge, impressive and fun to play crane and your collection of bricks gets more in balance on the colour spectrum!

42042 Crawler Crane is the second large Technic set for 2015 and surprisingly, despite being a crane, it has only three insignificant yellow parts.

Box/Instructions

The set comes in a large box with several images of the finished model. The rear of the box shows the B Model - Mobile Tower Crane. The stickers indicate that both cranes are part of the MT Lifting Service. This likely honours Michael T. Jeppesen as the LEGO designer.

The instructions come in one bound book of 233 pages.

I was somewhat surprised to find that a large section of the instructions has been jumbled up and printed backwards. Pages 171 to 194 are printed upside down and in reverse order.

(Edit: as of Friday 11 Oct, I received an updated edition of the instruction book with the printing error fixed from the LEGO Service Centre)

Parts

The parts come in numbered bags for the four sections.

Bags numbered 1 build the crawler chassis.

There is another new large turntable which has been seen in the 42043 Mercedes Benz Arocs 3245.

Bags numbered 2 build the main gear box and this forms the basis of the crane body.

There is an L Motor powering the set.

The bags numbered 3 link the crane sections together. The crane body is beginning to take shape and the boom foot section and gantry are in place.

Bags numbered 4 complete the set. The Crane body takes shape and the boom is complete.

The build

This set took a couple of nights to build and was a pleasure to construct. The only confusion occurred when arriving at the mixed up section of the instructions. I am so used to LEGO being meticulously correct that these sorts of situations lead me to question the build before suspecting an error made by LEGO.

The crane comes with a manually operated grab that is exactly the same as the grab found on 42006 Excavator.

The grab detaches from the lifting hook by removing two tow bar pins.

The hook is similar to the one found on 42009 Mobile Crane Mk II.

The completed model

One of the most striking features of this set is the simple intuitive way that the gear box operates to give this set its functions. There are two gear levers; the left lever operates the boom guy line and crawler tracks while the right lever operates the hoist rope and slewing.

If the string is rove on correctly then the direction of the lever matches the intended direction of the winch.

Also the gearing is organised in such a way that when the boom guy line is payed out at the same time as the hook is hoisted the hook stays at the same height but the operating radius increases as the hook moves further away or vice versa.

The gear levers operate the winches when they are in the outer positions and drive the tracks and slewing when in the inner positions.

One drawback of the design is that there is only one drive axle for the tracks and therefore you can't steer the crane.

As can be seen, the crane cab pivots upwards giving the crane driver a better view of the load on the hook. This is archived through the use of a friction cylinder under the cab.

The dominant colour of this set is blue and it contains the first instance of a blue Bowed Panel 3x11x2.

The boom guy line terminates on a tow bar pin on the gantry. It is possible to gain some more mechanical advantage on the guy line by terminating the line on the equaliser bridle although you will need 20% more string in order to lower the boom.

The gantry back hitch can also be relocated further up the gantry. This enables the boom to top up further thus reducing the minimum operating radius of the crane.

Having a smaller operating radius will increase the lifting capacity of the crane.

Overall opinion

I have enjoyed building this set and 2015's companion Technic set, 42043 Mercedes Benz Arocs 3245. That they are both not yellow adds to the joy as I now have a great selection of Technic parts in different colours.

The set drives well but is rather jumpy. When the drive train and slewing is out of gear it is possible to push the set around easily.

I am sure that this set could be made to operate remotely. There is room under the track chassis for two M Motors so there is an opportunity to add steering capability. Three IR Receivers and three motors will fit in the gear box cavity.

I would have preferred a new grab design and there could have been a metal hook.

I plan to build some additional crane boom sections to give this set a greater height lifting capability.

Overall, I am impressed with the accuracy of this build. I have worked at sea transporting crawler cranes between the North and South Islands in ships and have experienced loading cranes dismantled into their various components to lighten the load. This crane accurately resembles real world crawler cranes.

Added to that is the ease in which the gear box operates that makes driving this set a breeze.

Have some fun in the construction industry by building 42042 Crawler Crane.