Here's all the Not Lego sets I bought in 2020!

 Here's all the Not Lego sets I bought in 2020

Hey there brick fans, welcome to my first post in 2021 on my blog Its Not Lego.   As the blog post title indicates, this is just a quick list of all the not Lego building sets I've purchased last year.  

Some sets are knockoffs of existing Lego sets such as the Bela brand 11053 Yacht or 11342 Harry Potter Bus.   Other sets are unique China designs such as the Sembo 102348 SWAT truck or the Urge 10180 Bakery modular building.  I also added a couple of MOC design sets to my collection, including the Jerac TIE Bomber and the Kristel Cast Iron modular building.

On the topic of MOCs, I customized a lot of my own sets too last year.   I converted the King 84008 Green Grocer into a cool police station for my not Lego city.  I used the original Zhe Gao QL0935 set and transformed it into a fully furnished modular building.   You can find more example of my MOC builds on my other blog Bricks and Figs.

Here's the list of sets which I bought in chronological order throughout 2020.   I haven't gotten around to reviewing each building set, but if I did there will be a link next to the set name.

Sembo 102348 SWAT truck

Bela/Lari 11053 yacht

Sluban B0780 Recycling truck   (link)

Sembo 601070 Crab Shop   (link)

Lepin 45012 Rexplorer

Qman 1132 Bun shop  (link)

Bela/Lari 11342 Potter bus (link)

King 84008 Green Grocer

Zhe Gao QL0935 Hill Tavern    (link)

Sembo 107007 Troop Carrier

Sembo 601075 Sakura Tree

Sembo 601303 Ambulance

Lepin 05145 X-Wing

Sembo 601078 Japanese food stalls

MOC 13952 TIE Bomber  (link)

Jack JJ001 Central Perk

Decool 2113 Osprey Chopper   (link)

Bela/Lari 11429 Snowspeeder

MOC C4228 Cast Iron modular

Rael 10004 Bike Shop (unbuilt)

Urge 10180 Bake Shop

Lele Bros 8613 Food cart

Hsanhe 31001 Train station

Xingbao XB01013 Urban village (unbuilt)

Total of 24 sets - average of 2 sets per month during 2020.   As you can see, 2020 kept me pretty busy building with not Lego.   Hopefully it will continue in 2021!

That's it for this quickie post.   Thanks for looking and see you in the next blog post,

Hsanhe 6853 Not Lego Tanker Truck Set Review

Hey boot Lego fans!  Welcome back to Its Not Lego.  I finally got a Hsanhe tanker truck to go with my Lepin Gas Station 02047.  This set number is 6853 and consists of 250 pieces.  It's my first Hsanhe set that isn't a modular building. I guess they are branching out with their set offerings.

This tanker truck bears a striking similarity to the Lego City Tanker truck 60016, especially in style and colour scheme, but I discovered after building the Hsanhe version, the pieces that make up the tank differ from the Lego version.  

I got my set from Aliexpress and it arrived in about 3 weeks.   The instructions to build the tanker truck are printed on a large two sided folded sheet.

There are five bags of parts and a small sticker sheet, but nary an Octan logo to be found.

Time to start building!

Making good progress after completing the steps on the first page.

And here's the finished product.  The clutch on the bricks is excellent.  This thing feels solid.  

This near copy of the Lego set even includes a gas pump but the Lego version has a wheel on the pump where it's been replaced by what looks to be a fire extinguisher in the Hsanhe set.  

I'm not really impressed with the minifigure.  The leg portion doesn't match the body.  That's probably why the minifig is scowling.  Of all the Hsanhe sets I've built, this is the worst minifigure.

Another peeve of mine is tanker cab's cloudy windshield.

No issues though with the rear of the truck and attached ladder.

A view of the right side.

Overhead shot.

On the Lego tank truck there's a hose and spool on the left side, but  on the Hsanhe version it's been replaced by a storage compartment.

Also the last difference is that the Lego truck has white coloured mirrors vs the Hsanhe silver mirrors.

Here's the Hsanhe tank truck pulling up to the Lepin gas station to make a delivery.

The Hsanhe tanker truck is a nice addition to my Its-Not-Lego town.  It's a solid build and looks great.  The misses are the cloudy windshield and the sad looking minifigure.   Thanks for visiting and see you next time!

Hsanhe 6704 Not Lego Mini Street Shop Set Review

The Hsanhe Set

I first became aware of the Hsanhe brand of building blocks when they made some mini modular buildings.

A few months ago, I saw that Hsanhe created a second series of mini modular buildings, that are bigger than the first set.  I decided to bite the bullet and order one of the buildings to check out the quality.  There are six other buildings in this Hsanhe series, but I got this set because I felt this design was the most interesting.  You can see all of the other building sets here.

Here's my set review of the Hsanhe 6704 model which has no name.  The instruction booklet does say it's a 3-in-1 model but there aren't any instructions to be build any alternate models beyond what you see here.

The Details

 While it's not a direct copy, this modular set does have some similarities to Lego's Corner Deli set 31050.  This set has 472 pieces and the Lego Corner Deli has 467 pieces.  The set comes with the instruction booklet, several grey baseplates and 5 bags of parts.

The set comes with two minifigures but they aren't unique to this set.  We've seen the guy with the green sweater before in the Hsanhe 6410-2 Convenience store set.  And the guy with the red shirt and ballcap comes from the Hsanhe 6411-2 Fast Food store set.

 This bag of parts contains the black, yellow and green parts.

 This bag has the dark blue and light gray pieces.

 Orange and red pieces are grouped together here.

 This bag has all the white and light blue pieces.

 And finally, this bag has a mish-mash of other pieces.

The First Floor

Here's the building set after completing most of the first floor.  It's got quite a few windows and doors and a colourful awning.  The patio still needs to be built.

 Inside the shop, there's a small table with some containers on it in one section and what looks to be a counter area in the other.  It's still pretty ambiguous as to what this store sells.  Definitely no sandwiches here, so it's not a deli.

 The building closes up as pictured above.

 As you can see this set has quite a few colours including the orange bricks, black windows and green doors.  Accent colours are yellow, red and dark blue.  The interior floor tile is brown and cream coloured with light blue accents.

 I don't have the Lego Corner Deli set, so I guess the interior spaces are about the same.  I guess Hsanhe could have done a better job of adding more details inside, because I find it kind of bare.

The Second Floor

 After building the second floor, I found that the dark blue bricks were really scuffed.  This is not typical of the other Hsanhe bricks which I found to be excellent quality.

On the second floor, there's a big armchair and a cabinet under the window.

Here's how the building looks closed up from above.

 I didn't get any stickers with this set but it did come with lots of spare parts and a brick separator.

This building has an outdoor antenna with a bird on it just like Lego's corner deli.  You can see that the patio is finished now.

Here's some views around the building.   Side view above.

 I guess this would be the front of the Hsanhe shop.  There's a small balcony upstairs with another door and awning.

 The opposite side of the building.  I'm not sure if I like the dark blue second floor with the first floor orange colour.

 And here's the back door and lots of windows and a fire hydrant.  I wish the window pieces weren't so cloudy.

The Verdict

Ok, so I thought the set design and build was just so-so.  Brick quality and window pieces could have been better.  I found the interior lacked any detail or indication of what the shop was supposed to be.
The minifigure quality was good but not unique to this set.  Since this set is double the size of other  Hsanhe buildings, they could have added a couple of extra minifigs.  It's also too bad that Hsanhe didn't provide any alternate build instructions despite the fact they call the set 3-in-1.

I give this set a rating of 6 out of 10 for the reasons above.  The Hsanhe 6704 Mini shop cost about $15 USD on Aliexpress.  In the future, I will probably rebuild it as a full modular or use the set for parts in another building.

So do you think you would buy this set?  Let me know if you have another other Hsanhe building sets and what you think of their quality.