Angled Walls (Tips?)

[Life_Unscripted]

I was looking at alot of the castles and landscaping lately and have seen these angled walls popping up everywhere. I was just wondering if anyone had a list or link explaining how these are done? Thanks!

[Bluesecrets]

I don't have a tutorial for you, but I can tell you how I have done it in the past...hinge bricks. That isn't the only way to do it, but it is the way I do.

[Handar]

The LEGO Creator website has a number of video tips, one of the very earliest was by Jamie Berard on creating angled walls. You can find it here. It's not the only technique, but it's a powerful one.

Edit: The useful technique isn't demonstrated until about the halfway point in the video; you'll first need to sit through a minute or so of basic stacking angled bricks on top of angled bricks.

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

Pythagoras can be your friend. You can build walls at an angle as long as you follow pythagorean triples. Put one 1x1 plate down, and then another three studs over and four studs up. A 1x6 brick can then fit across these neatly. You can use tiles to fill in the gaps underneath. I've got a blog post linking to several instances of how geometry works for you on SciBricks. Also, I was just looking for other examples and ran across this great video.

Bruce

[Handar]

To add to Bruce's post, when building Pythagorean triples, you need to count the number of 'gaps' between studs on each side, not the number of studs. A 1 x 6 brick has six studs but five 'gaps', which is why it works for the long side of Bruce's example.

So, a basic 3,4,5 triangle needs to have four, five, and six studs along each of its respective sides (just as Bruce's example points out). A 5,12,13 triangle, similarly, would require six, thirteen, and fourteen studs on each of its respective sides. It took me longer than I'd like to admit before I fully sorted this out in my mind. (You very well might have seen this right away.)

In short, you have two options: (i) count the 'gaps' if you want to work with the familiar numbers from Pythagorean triples (e.g., 3,4,5), or (ii) add one to each of those numbers and count the studs instead (e.g., 4,5,6).

[andhe]

It depends whether you are meaning 'walls WITH an angle' (eg as shown in Jamie Berards video linked above and Blue's suggestion) or 'walls AT and angle' (eg as shown in Bruce's linked video and the above comment).

Walls AT an angle was something I was wanting to try for my latest build, but failing the patience to work out the pythagoras stuff it was just a bit of trial and error. The basics remain the same, you need some way of raising your wall off the baseplate studs (eg a 1x1 plate) and the fill in the gap underneath with tiles to support it. I probably made the mistake of using jumper plates which I guess throws a whole different angle in seeing as they put a 'stud between studs' (if that makes sense) so don't know how pythagoras would work out here. I just played with a few bits until the angle fitted! But will have to give the pythagoras a go.

Thanks for raising the topic!

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

Use of jumper plates is the same thing, it is just doubling the number of points on your grid. You still get the same angles, but can get them into smaller places. E.g. an 8,15,17 triple can be fit inside a 5x8 section.

Bruce

[peggyjdb]

Thanks for the link Handar, interesting stuff.

Pythagoras is good.



I don't use it much now though. You can also get angles by using the trick where you completely ignore the maths and just turn things. Take a 2x3 brick and put 1x1 round plate in two diagonally opposite corners, then fit this onto a baseplate. Now just lift off the brick, and rotate it so that it sits on the round plates but in the other two corners. This principle works on any rectangle 2, 3 etc wide and any length. I use this method occasionally.

My favorite two techniques are using wedge plates (can't get enough of these right now) and just resting walls on top of tiles. With the wedge plate I use it on the landscape and then the wall sits behind it on a support with tiles. With the second technique, just resting the wall on tiles can be difficult as every time you move the MOC the wall goes back in a different place, but it is very freeing.

[jediknight219]

Cannot... ignore... maths... Oh wait, I'm American. I say math.

So... Using your 2x3 trick, by putting down a foundation of tiles except for two 1x1 plates at strategic locations I can approximate any angle x by taking a rational approxation of tan(x/2), so long as the denominator and numerator of the rational are smaller than the length and width of my building, respectively. For instance, a 30 degree angle: tan(15 degrees) = 0.2679 is roughly 1/4, so the two plates should be 4 studs apart in one direction, and 1 stud apart in the other. Or if the building is wide enough, 3/11 and 4/15 are better approximations.

[DNL]

If you want to get rid of those ugly gaps between the two walls that you usually get when angling walls, i recommend using my favourite LEGO piece, panels. Here are some examples: One
Two
Another alternative is cheese slopes, but those are a lot more expensive.