Tuesday, March 20, 2018

Sluban M38-B0550 Not Lego Cement Mixer Set Review

Hello!  It's Not Lego, it's Sluban.  Yes, today we are going to look at one of the vehicles from the Sluban City construction series.  The featured set is the Sluban M38-B0550 Cement Mixer.

The instruction booklet says we get 296 pieces.

The Sluban Cement Mixer looks to be a proprietary design and not a Lego one.  It's quite a large truck and is fairly accurate.  There is the water tank above the mixing drum that actually rotates.


The front cab has opening doors on both sides and tilts forward.  Too bad there's no engine to be displayed.

My biggest disappointment from this set is the ugly wheels that barely rotate.  I tried reversing the rims and tires but the wheels still don't roll.  Also the placement of the front wheels in relation to the fenders don't look that great either, but that's just me being nitpicky.

I like the way the cement mixer looks from the front.  Sluban only put a single seat in the cab, so it looks kind of weird with the steering wheel being in the middle.

The set also comes with a number of non Lego type minifigures and you also get a small cart for wheeling stuff around.

I think you get 4 minifigs but I think one of them went to get coffee for the others, so he's not in the pictures.

Here's the back of the truck and you can see it has a swivelling discharge chute and hopper at the top. It's only for looks, though because it doesn't do much.


The Sluban set also comes with some other accessories like a sign and a small guard rail.  There is also a shovel which attaches to the side of the cab.

Oh I forgot to mention that there are side mirrors that are situated on both sides of the cab.  You also get a small sticker sheet, but like always I hardly ever use them.

Just some more views of the cement truck in action.

I can say that you get a lot of extra parts with this Sluban set, like almost 20 or 30 spare pieces of random parts.  I didn't encounter any missing or deformed parts.  I would say the brick clutch is about 90% of similar Lego bricks.   The cement mixer looks ok to display but I wish it rolled better.  I am thinking about replacing the wheels, but right now I don't have any extras in my parts stash.

Brand: Sluban
Model:  M38-B0550 Cement Mixer
Number of pieces: 296, but you get extra pieces
 Price paid:  about $7 USD with free shipping.



 Bye and Thanks for looking!

Saturday, March 10, 2018

Lepin 15007 Not Lego Market Street Set Review - Part Two


Hi and welcome back to my blog Its Not Lego.  If you've just arrived, we are taking a look at the Lepin 15007 Market Street modular building set which is a knock-off of the Lego Market Street set 10190.  In our previous post we started to build it and completed the foundation, the open market area and the first floor.  You can find that post here.

Second Floor


In this review, we will finish off the second and third floors of the Market Street building.  This part of the build is the least exciting. Essentially you just keep placing bricks all the way around.  The front of the second floor has a doorway and two windows flanking it.  Above the two windows are some small awnings.

As with the first floor of the Market Street building, there is nothing inside the interior except a central staircase.

The light blue bricks are punctuated by light gray creased bricks which gives the Market Street building an old feeling.  Notice the yellow bricks above, where it looks like they have bricked in the windows, just like the first floor.  I kinda wish they had left the windows in, to increase play value.

Here's the second floor completed with a small terrace and railing in front.  So Lepin really skimped out with the two fire hoses that are supposed to make up the top and bottom railing. They are so narrow that the arms that connect the two railings don't stay on. I didn't even bother to put them on.

This is the how the Lepin Market Street building looks with the second floor addition.

Third Floor


Now we start building the third floor apartment.  I say that loosely because since there's no furnishings provided, I'm just guessing that the third floor is an apartment.  There is another door this time flanked by two small arched windows.  Oh, I wanted to mention that the second storey and third storey doors can't even open because of the small terrace and close proximity of the railings.  Really a fail in the design of this building, in my opinion.  Why did Lego even choose to make this Market Street building?

About the only interesting feature of the Market Street building is this third floor patio.  It features a door and seat and a plant (which we will see later).

On the opposite side of the third floor, we get another window and the some roof tiles.

Last look at the third floor before we wrap things up.


Here's the completed Lepin Market Street modular building.

The third floor with completed roof and patio details added.

Right side view.

Lepin Market Street building with adjoining market place.

Tada! All done.  The same problem with the railings is present on the third floor.  I do like the facade details with the lion's head over the doorway.


A final look at the Lepin 15007 Market Street building as displayed in Its Not Lego town.  It won't last long however, as I plan to either renovate the Market Street building or tear it down and repurpose the bricks in the near future.  I really can't stand this building design, I'm sorry to say.

Let me know what you think of the Market Street building.  Do you like it or not?

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Lepin 15007 Not Lego Market Street Set Review - Part One



So here's the thing, I wasn't really planning on buying the Lepin 15007 Market Street modular building.  I don't really consider it a true modular building like the others such as the Town Hall, the Parisian Restaurant or Green Grocer to name a few.  But just before Christmas, I saw it for sale on Aliexpress for about $43 USD, and I succumbed.



My package came without a box, and comprised of two 16x32 baseplates, one instruction manual and twenty-eight numbered bags.  At 1275 pieces, the Market Street set is the smallest of the Lego modular building sets.  The Lepin set is a bootleg of the Lego set 10190.  The original Lego set had a retail price of about $90 USD.  Current prices on Ebay for the now discontinued Market Street set range from a low of about $600 USD to over a few thousand for an unopened box set.

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Marketplace


Having not seen the original instructions, I assume that the Lepin instruction manual is a Lego knockoff as well.  My instruction manual came with stickers strategically covering the Lepin logo.


The Market Street building set is made up of two sections.  One is a covered market place and the other is a three and a half storey building.  Following the first ten steps of the instructions, here is how the covered market place starts off.

This set comes with three minifigures, and I think there are some minor differences between the Lepin and Lego  versions.  Sorry, the gorilla doesn't come with the set.

There are only eighteen steps to fully complete the covered market.  There are two produce baskets and a pair of iron gates and that's pretty much it.  The manhole cover pattern is not quite aligned properly.

The horn and whip design over the front entrance gives it a gothic feel.  I think it would be better suited for use in the haunted house set.

Side view.

Not sure why there are two vents on the roof, given that the interior is unfurnished and open.

Ok, time to move on to the multi-storey building.

Foundation


The Market Street building sits on a raised foundation.  It has a number of windows on the front and an internal staircase.

Here's the completed foundation.

Let's see how the building looks next to the market area.

First Floor


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Here's some views of the first floor as it takes shape.

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Other than an interior staircase, there isn't anything else inside.

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The front door is covered with an awning and flanked by two large windows.

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There aren't any windows on the side or rear of the building, but the design makes it look like there used to be windows but have now been bricked in.

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With all light gray  bricks interspersed through the dark blue, it gives the impression that the paint is peeling and that gives the building an aged look.

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A look at the spartan interior.

And here's how the building looks with the first floor completed.

I'll stop here and continue the Lepin Market Street build in a second blog post coming soon.
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