Thursday, August 30, 2018

Lepin 02058 Not Lego People in Park Set Review


Hey brick fans, got a new set to review.  This one is really new, it's the Lepin 02058  People in the Park set and is a bootleg of LEGO City Fun in the Park City People Pack (60134).  I wish I could say it's identical but as we will see later, it's not quite.

 This set consists of 14 minifigures and a lot of accessories.  Let's take a look at them now.

 I ordered this set from my favorite Reddit seller named Jeremy and it came superfast, like one week.

As you know, Lepin is sometimes hit or miss when it comes to the quality of their minifigures, but I can say that the ones that come in this set are all really good.  I'm pretty sure that these ones are very similar to Lego versions.   Let's take a look at the first four, guy in flannel shirt, little playground girl, lady in purple top and lady in green overalls.  The torso designs look crisp and clean and their faces look legit.

 Here's their backsides with back printing on the torsos.  All the hair pieces look like the actual Lego ones too.  Lepin have been known to substitute different hair pieces in the past.

The next five minifigs are the painter lady, little soccer girl and little soccer boy, and senior man and woman.

From the back, only the old man doesn't have any torso printing, everyone else is nicely detailed.

The last five minifigures are presented here.   They consist of guy in wheelchair, hotdog vendor, business lady, playground boy and teen on bike.  The teen on the bike should have a bike helmet and not a white hair piece, unfortunately.

 Their outfits all look right, but I'm disappointed that the bike helmet from this set has been changed.

This guys is supposed to be a teen, but here he looks like an old guy because of the white hair.

 Back view.

 Side view.
Time to look at the accessories now.

Here's the wheel chair.


 The tires look crappy.

 The hotdog vendor and his cart.  I like the flip up design.  But one wiener and bun is not enough.


 Here's business lady with her briefcase at the bus stop.  The briefcase doesn't quite close properly but I'm happy to have the bus stop sign for my Its-Not-Lego town.

 Playground carousel and one of two trees that you get in the set.

 A red bicycle, tires are just so-so.

 A park bench with pink flowers.  The petals actually stay on the stems which is an improvement from previous Lepin sets.

Painter girl gets a paint roller, bucket and a fence to paint.

The two kids are supposed to be playing soccer, so what are they doing kicking a volleyball into the net?

Some food items include a croissant and an apple.

 Here's a picnic table with basket.  Nice doggy.

I forgot to mention the baby minifig that's in the stroller. So I guess you actually get 15 minifigs.  That lawnmower is gonna be loud, but luckily baby hasn't grown any ears yet.

 Lepin says you get 258 pieces, whereas the Lego 60134 set has 157 pieces.

 Not a lot of spare parts, just two hands and one flower petal.


This set would have got a perfect rating from me if it had the proper bike helmet and the wheelchair and bike tires were better quality, but for the price, the set rates a 4.5 out of 5 because the minifigure and accessories quality was very good.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Bela 10648 Not Lego Pizza Van Set Review


And we're back!  With another bootleg Lego set to review.  This one is the Bela 10648 Pizza Van, which is a complete knock-off of the Lego set 60150 City Pizza Van.  I notice now that both Lepin and Bela don't put any company names or set numbers on the instruction manuals anymore, I think this is due to customs seizures in Europe.


 The stickers are pretty cool with this set and I almost regret not using them on the Pizza Van.

Aliexpress says that there are 261 pieces. This is all of them.

 Amongst those parts are two minifigures and a scooter.  There's the pizza chef who works inside the pizza truck and there's a girl who delivers the pizzas.  She comes with long hair and a helmet with visor, so you can choose how she looks.

 Let's build that van now.

Some shots of the chassis coming together.

 Now time to start working on the interior of the van.



Pepperoni pizza anyone?

Maybe you'd like some fries with that.

 Almost done!

 Pizza van complete.

Open for business and deliveries.  I thought the little green round stud was extra but now realize it's supposed to attach to the top of the umbrella.

Just to review, brick clutch and quality is very good, seems to be more consistent with Bela branded sets than Lepin.  Minifig quality is also very good.  No missing, deformed or extra parts.  Instruction manual clearly identifies the parts and sticker sheet colours are good too.  I won this set on ebay for about $10 USD but you can get it off Aliexpress for just a bit more.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my quickie review.


Friday, August 10, 2018

Ausini 25004 Not Lego Freight Train Set Review

Hey All, it's time for another look at another Not Lego building block set.  This time, I did a picture dump of the Ausini brand 25004 Freight Train.

 I actually bought this off Aliexpress quite a few months ago, maybe even a year ago.  Just never got around to building it.  It's a fairly large set that consists of a train locomotive and two small flatbeds to carry a couple of cargo containers.  Also featured is the cargo crane with moveable winch and control cabin.  Finally, you also get a tractor trailer with flatbed carrier.  In total, there are 792 pieces to this set.

 Oh, I also forgot to mention you get quite a bit of track as well. You get ten pieces of straight track and two pieces of curved track.  The train only takes up about four or five sections of track, so you get to move it around on all the track.  Note that Ausini track only has the single railroad ties and not the double ties you get with Lego train sets.  Also, the Ausini tracks are a light gray colour, whereas Lego tracks are usually dark gray.

 Here's all the bags of parts.  You get the instruction manual and a sticker sheet, and some tools still on the plastic tree.

 Assembly is easy using the manual and brick clutch is very good.  Bricks are not scratched either.

 In no time at all, I completed assembly of the locomotive.  It's fairly symmetrical on the front and back.

There are two cabins in the forward and rear parts of the train.  Access is by simply lifting the nose piece on either end.  There are also several doors along the side of the engine.

 Here's one of the cargo containers on the rail car.  This one is red and it comes with stickers, which I didn't put on it.  The containers don't come off the rail cars easily, as it attaches using all the studs.  I'm gonna replace some of the plate pieces to make removal easier.  The red cargo container has a bar attached so the crane can hook it off the railcar.  I don't know why but Ausini, didn't put one on the orange cargo container.

 Here's the orange cargo container.  It comes with some printed pieces, so I don't know why they couldn't have done the same for the red container, instead of providing stickers.

Here's a look at the completed train with locomotive and the two rail cars.  If it was up to me, I would prefer that the cargo containers were just one colour, either red or orange, but not both.

 The train rolls along the provided track very smoothly and the magnets that attach to each railcar have a good hold.   Here's the train pulling up to the cargo crane and getting offloading the containers, well one anyways.

The cargo winch is quite strong and you can roll it up or down using the gear mechanism.

 The crane operator cabin slides along the top of the beams for precise offloading.

Here's the overhead view.

 Almost forgot about these guys.  You get four Lego compatible minifigures, however they are all the same.  Their faces are pretty dopey looking, so I'll probably yank their heads off and replace them.  They all have orange shirts with blue overalls and a red cap that says CITY.  They get to use some tools like a pickaxe, a saw, and other tools.

 I was just testing out the placement of the yellow pieces on the rail cars to see which would hold the cargo containers better.  The red one has the proper placement as per the manual.

 Here's the tractor trailer.  A fairly sturdy build.

The trailer detaches from the cab and you can lower the struts to hold it up.


 It has a pretty good turning radius.  Both cargo containers will fit on the trailer at the same time.

 This pic is just to show the scale of the cargo terminal and one of the worker bees.

The operator cabin has good views all the way around.  The winch motor is attached to the back of the cabin and both of them slide on the beam.   It's got lights so they can still work in the dark.

Here's a look at the winch.

 An overhead view of the cargo terminal.

 Finally, this is how you get into the operator cabin.

Conclusion:

The Ausini 25004 Cargo Train building set is quite a large build that will keep you occupied for a few hours.  The play value is excellent with the inclusion of the cargo terminal and tractor trailer.  I would have liked some variety in the minifigures but I have lots of other ones from other sets I can use.
As mentioned before the Ausini brick quality and clutch is very good.  I didn't have any missing or defective pieces.

This is my second Ausini train set and I'm very happy to have it in my collection. Looking back at my notes, I paid approx $40 USD for this set shipped.

I reviewed the Ausini passenger train here:  https://bricksandfigs.blogspot.ca/2015/04/ausini-25903-passenger-train-part-one.html.

I now have a total of four trains in my collection now:  The Enlighten freight locomotive 627, the Ausini 25903 Passenger train and the Lepin Horizon Express.

Thanks for looking!