LEGO Techniques - Rhotuka!

Yeah I know. What? Not a clue. But I found one of these little parts in a bulk bin and grabbed it because it was new to me. Plus it takes no space or weight to speak of. Finally figured out that it is used in conjunction with a rip-cord. This was WAAAY back in 2004 before Chima Speedorz and Airjitzu. So nothing new. In fact I thought it was a friction fit gear from the old 80's motors.

Unfortunately the gear teeth don't really mesh with anything else except the rip-cord. But like everything else, it fits with the System! Yeah, can you believe it? The first thing that grabbed my attention was that little nub. When I was a kid I was disappointed that the little void under a stud wasn't sized to match anything. Now we know of course that LEGO sometimes uses that void to place tracking devices to understand more about how LEGO is played with. If you find a tracker, smash it!

How? Use this little piece. The nub fits that void and the teeth are sized at 4.8mm diameter which (as we all know by now) matches a stud. Fits great into a 1x1 plate, albeit a little loose. The fit into a round 1x1 plate is much tighter. If your fingers aren't very grippy, you might need some pliers.

Since the diameter is a stud, it should fit into a tube under a brick, right? With ease!

Hey wait, is this the missing double male stud SNOT piece we've been seeking?

Oh. Yes. With exactly a plate of width in the middle. (I really did need pliers to extract the hex end as it was quite tight).

LEGO Techniques - Gear With Studs

Quite a while ago I ran a series of posts describing the different sizes of Systems and how they all were part of the greater whole.  That is, bigger is still compatible with smaller.  In my wrap-up one astute reader noted that I had missed the stud sizes for gear such as salt and pepper shakers, minifig display cases, and clocks.  Finally, months later, here's another installation.


I bought a set of salt and pepper shakers more for the novelty than use in the actual kitchen.  That's a nice way of saying the Mrs. Dagsbricks would not let me use these in the kitchen but camping would be okay.  I'll pass on the dirt/ABS mashup.  So they are novelty items in my office space.  But while purchasing these I used them to test sizes of various "Gear" and discovered that there is consistency even in these large items.

To wit the 1x1 brick salt shaker:

Width: 47mm.  This is 8mm x 6 = 48mm - 1mm of tolerance.
Height: 57mm.  9.6mm x 6 = 57.6mm.  My calipers could be off a touch.
Stud Diameter: 29mm.  4.8mm x 6 = 28.8mm.
Stud Height: 11mm. 1.7mm x 6 = 10.2mm.  So apparently these studs are a touch high.

This comes in at the same size as Primo and Soft Bricks, six times LEGO System.  I've updated the chart with this new item.  Due to the height of Primo studs, they are only compatible in one direction with the gear.  You can stack Primo on top of gear but the other way 'round will be an exercise in frustration.


Practically there's very little value to this size other than novelty.  As with Primo there's no clutch to speak of.  But if you really wanted to you could create some sort of a megalith with your display cases and salt and pepper shakers, then topped off with whimsical Primo blocks.  But at that point you've got more free time and/or money than me.