Jerac's Tie Bomber MOC 13952 Knockoff Review - Part One

Intro

Hello and welcome back to Its-Not-Lego blog!  Today I'll be sharing my build pictures of the MOC 13952 Tie Bomber.  The version I have is the knock off model found on sites Aliexpress and Vonado.  Honestly, I don't know what the brand of this model is, but if you search Aliexpress for MOC 13952, it will show up.

The original model was created by Lego enthusiast Jerac  back in March 2018, so if you want all the background and details on this cool model, just Google "Jerac's Tie Bomber".

TL;DR

If you just want the quick details, here it is:

Model: MOC 13952 Jerac's Tie Bomber
Set Number: N/A
Number of pieces: 1494+
Number of minifigures: 0

Fake Lego?  No.
Missing Parts: N/ Deformed pieces: N/ Scratched pieces: N
#itsnotlego Rating:  3 out of 5 stars.  This set is for advanced builders only and has a lot of finicky parts held together by a single stud.  The model falls apart easily due to a combination of quirky construction techniques and possibly bricks that don't clutch as well as original Lego. I would have given this model 5 stars because the look and feel is so awesome, but I had to deduct 1 point for the design of some of the elements and another point for poor brick clutch on critical pieces.

The Build

My Tie Bomber set came packaged with 11 ziplock bags of parts. They were numbered but didn't correspond to any of the build steps.  Regarding the instructions, you can get them online in PDF format through BrickVault.

Instructions were fairly straight forward except that each step doesn't really highlight where to place the parts, so you have to examine the steps closely.   What follows is a sequence of pics I took during the build.

Building the crossbeam that connects the wings, the cockpit and bomber bay.

Rotated so you can see the details on the back.

Rotated back to the front side.

View from the rear. The bomber and cockpit fuselages start to take shape.  So far, so good.  You can see that pieces will be attached in several orientations.  Everything is nice and solid to this point.

This sheet was included in one of the parts bags. It looks like at the last minute, the blue gray curved panels were being replaced by dark gray.  I don't know why the knock off set couldn't include the correct pieces here but this was a big disappointment.  Fail #1.

I ended up ordering the light gray curved pieces from Aliexpress. When they arrive I will replace the ugly looking dark gray pieces.

In the original instructions, I believe there's supposed to be two printed control panels in the cockpit, however the knockoff set doesn't come with those parts so I just substituted 2 grill pieces for now.  I might have some printed control panels in my brick stash, but too lazy to look for them at the moment.

The knock off set gives you a 6x6 trans black round windscreen instead of a printed cockpit screen. The installation of the slanted cowling pieces and the corner fins around the windscreen give it a nice tapering effect except that the bottom clip wouldn't clutch to the rest of the body, so the windscreen kept falling off.  Fail #2.

The rear corner fins added as well as top and bottom plates.  These corner fins fall off at the slightest touch as they are just held in place by a clip to t-joint.  Fail #3.

Both fuselages take shape after remaining side panels have been added.  Now working on the center struts for the wings.  I substituted a spare 6x6 round piece from the Sanctum Santorum roof in lieu of the plane glass, just for fun.

Wings starting to take shape.  They become very solid once you get the bricks snapped into place.

This is the bottom view.  Those corner fins just won't stay in place.  Not sure if this is a design issue or a clutch issue.

Wings completed.  The triangular pieces within the wing panels kept falling out since they were only held in place by a stud brick.  Fail #4. 

The Conclusion?

At this point, every time I handled the Tie Bomber, one piece or another would fall off.   What would you do?  Would you glue the loose pieces?  Throw it at the wall?  Or try to fix the deficiencies?   Leave your comments below!  Cliffhanger ending!   Find out what happened in my next post, coming tomorrow!  See ya!

Update:  Part Two - Fixing the not Lego Jerac's Tie Bomber now posted.

Please let me know if you had any issues with your non-branded Jerac's Tie Bomber and how you fixed them in the comment box below!