I created a table of my own before the start of this contest to compare the work of two outstanding long time authors.

After getting the scoresheet with Iron Builder, I checked my own table in more detail, and the final score was 13:12. It's crazy that there was only 1 point between them! I think Tim won this one the hard way...

Well, it was a really good battle. I saw two skilled and exceptional use of parts. From the beginning, Bousker's use of the gimmick on the shoe, to Tim's use of it as teeth, pectoral fins, it was breathtaking.

I'll admit, from the start, I thought Bousker had the advantage, and the first half of the course was a fantastic piece of work. Especially the characterisation of Cars. But Tim came in later and he caught up on the turtle. 'Teeth' really poked my funny bone.
Finally, my congratulations to Tim, who was the winner in my opinion, and to Bousker, who equally defended their honour.

While the spectator in me had an amazing two weeks of enjoying countless amazing Iron Builds, the judge now has to draw the airplane-door-thin line between both our contestants.

Parts Usage
To me, Tim’s greatest achievement in this category is his Vespa, because all three different part usages are clean and combine nicely. Unfortunately, some of his entries, such as Little Ship, Patrol and Iron Freighter mostly take the airplane door as an aesthetic-looking, yet unspecific shape, resulting in beautiful MOC’s, that would still work almost equally good with any other rounded panel piece.
Although same can be said about Bousker’s GLaDos, I think they have the edge here as they constantly found new ways to incorporate multiple different seed part usages into a single build. Highlights are the Shoe Store, where they seamlessly hide different parts of the door to use it for many different shapes and Winter Sleepy Time, that combines shingles and cushions through clever framing.
The plane door’s underside proved tough to hide in builds like Tom’s manta ray and Bousker’s sail boat, but the latter actually found its unique slit compelling enough to try it on a door, which has to be my favorite seed part usage in this round!

Build Quality
Build quality was mostly very high in this round, Tim amazed me with his signature sci-fi stuff. His Iron Freighter is the clear standout here, well balanced, nicely shaped and greebled with a strong and consistent color scheme. The rings for the Iron Teeth windup mechanism are also very cool. Bousker on the other hand went all the way building their entries into full scenes, their GLaDos comes with great wiring and their incorporation of previous seed parts is incredibly elegant.
To decide this category, I’ll have to be nitpicky: Some seed part usages make things look forced, a rather blocky penguin on one, a rather blocky scientist on the other side. The doors do not line up convincingly on the chattering teeth and the daisies’ pot. The Patrol’s terrain or the Portrait gallery could use just a tad more detail. I wish the Little Ship and Vespa had a more intriguing color palette, but most importantly, the Iron Elementary’s sketch models feel – well – sketchy. Therefore, although Tim had the highest peaks, I’ll reward Bousker’s strong consistency.

Performance
Both builders showed and wowed us with a great diversity in scales, styles and themes. Between beautifully lit scenes, inspiring sci-fi vehicles, plants, animals and life-style objects, no one seemed limited in any way. With both even going for a meticulously crafted and mind-blowing meta-entry near the end, I’ll close my critique by considering Bousker’s A close finish a foreshadowing metaphor: It’s an unresolvable tie here, but they get to win the Piston Cup in the end!

I actually came into this expecting Tim’s greebly spacey sensibilities to win me over, but it was Bousker’s builds that really integrated the seed part in ways that made them feel necessary to the build. That GLaDos was beautiful, and didn’t even register as an Iron Builder build at first — but the more I looked, the more seed parts I found. The waves around the boat, the madman’s ladder, the cars’ eyes—!
But this was truly hard to judge, and I don’t want to slight Tim at all: that Patrol mech is something I’d love to have on my desk, and Iron Mars had the best use of the part’s underside overall. And a special mention to his Iron Elementary, perhaps the most inspired IB bit I’ve seen yet. Y’all put on a fantastic show :)