Bela 10643 Not Lego Race Plane Set Review

Hey all, I just added a new bootleg Lego building set to my collection.  This one is another City themed set, or in the case of Bela, the theme is called Urban.  Featured here is the Bela 10643 Race Plane which is a direct knock-off of the Lego City Race Plane model 60144.  This set has 94 pieces in it and consists of a single propeller plane and a pilot minifigure.

 My set came with the instruction booklet, a sticker sheet and three bags of parts.

 Let's rip it open!  This should be a very quick build.

 Here's the pilot minifigure with helmet and visor.  No issues with the visor.

Here's the race plane about halfway through the build.  Brick quality is excellent, no scratches or scuffs and the bricks have the same shiny finish as normal Lego bricks.  The glass canopy snapped on easily and had good clutch. No scratches on it.

 The completed race plane with canopy in closed position.  You can see how clear it is.

 The large front propeller spins easily.  The wheels have rubber tires unlike Sluban brand planes which only have the hard plastic wheels.

 Rear view of the race plane.  As always, I didn't apply any of the stickers.

 Pilot gets into the race plane.

Ready for takeoff!

I really liked this set, especially given the near Lego quality of the bricks and build.  The only thing I wish they could have done better was to have folding wings.  I might have to Mod mine in future and then it would be easier to transport on the back of a flatbed truck.

The Lego 60144 model will cost you $9.99 USD retail but you can probably get 20%-25% off depending on the sale.
I bid and won my set off ebay and paid about $3.60 USD. 

Lepin 01011 Not Lego Friends Pizzeria Set Review

Welcome! It's time to look at another bootleg Lego set at Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com.   Pictured above is the Friends Heartlake Pizzeria, this one is the Lepin 01011 set which knocks off the Lego set 41311.   I paid $12 USD for the Lepin set, where the Lego version will cost you about $30 USD.

Here's how the set looks like if you buy it from Aliexpress. This set has 299 pieces and comes with a delivery scooter and two friends style minifigs.   I've replaced the friends style minifigs with my own.
The brick quality and clutch is excellent.  I didn't get any scuffed bricks or missing pieces.  I also didn't get any extra pieces either.

Here is Lena, she now works at the pizzeria.

Normally, in the set reviews,  I show you pictures of set during construction, but this time we will look at the completed set.  The two storey building comes as shown with a main floor store front, a door and two windows with colourful awnings.  On the second floor, there is an outdoor terrace with seating for two.  The second floor also has an awning, a decorative railing and some foliage.

When we turn the set around we find the kitchen is housed on the main floor.  As you enter the front door, there is a cash register and a phone for taking pizza orders.  On the other side is a small table with some blue tart shells.

There's a prep area with some kitchen utensils, like the cool rolling pin, some dough, a hand mixer and a cooktop and sink.  The pizza oven can hold two pizzas at the same time.

I don't know why but I decided not to install the box behind the scooter.

 It's now easier to just to toss the pizzas in, when you deliver the pizzas.

 Lena thanks you for visiting her pizzeria.

 Lena's little brother Bruno, thanks you too.

Here is the Lepin pizzeria deconstructed.  I took it apart already because I have big plans for the pizzeria.  Can you guess what that might be?   Stay tuned!

Sluban M38-B0363 Not Lego Helicopter Set Review

Welcome back to Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com! I keep a giant list of all my building sets I've bought over the last few years and upon checking it today, I bought this Sluban Personal Helicopter set M38-B0363 exactly 3 years ago.

The Set Review

This Sluban brand set has 259 pieces and consists of 3 minifigures, a small ground vehicle, a fueling station and a red and white helicopter.  This set is part of Sluban's Aviation series, of which I have some of their other airplane building sets.  The helicopter design is very similar to the blue Lego helicopter set 3222.

The multi page instruction booklet is glossy and the instructions are well documented. I had actually packed this set away, so I had to scrounge around to find the minifigures and rebuild the set as close to the original instructions as possible.  I'll point out the differences I made further in the review.

  As I mentioned earlier, you get three minifigures which are not Lego compatible.  The Sluban minifigs have completely different parts and about the only thing you could share between these and Lego minifigs are the hats and hairpieces, everything else is incompatible.  On the plus side, you can tilt the heads on Sluban minifigs.

You get the fueling station attendant, the ground vehicle driver and the helicopter pilot.  I couldn't find the orange guys hairpiece, so I gave him some Elvis hair (thank you, thank you very much).  I swapped out the pilots head to give him some sunglasses also.

I couldn't find the original pieces of the fueling station so I moc'd something similar to the original design.

When I was rebuilding the ground vehicle, I decided to stretch it out a bit, so you can carry both people and luggage if necessary.

The above picture is from Sluban's official website and it shows you how the original fueling station and ground vehicle looked like.

Here's the set pieces with the minifigs.

The Helicopter

And here's the helicopter with one of my other Sluban minifigs.  I figured he looks like a mechanic for the helicopter, so I included him in the picture, but you don't get this guy with the building set, sorry.

 I re-built this set fairly quickly and I've separated it here into three components, the large rotor, the roof and nose cone, and the remainder of the helicopter fuselage.

I have to say the clutch power of the Sluban bricks is excellent, and the brick quality of this older 2014 set is much better than the recent Construction series bricks.  The large rotor spins freely on the helicopter motor.  There's also a smaller rotor on the tail.

Here's the fuselage and interior.  There are three sets of double wheels on the undercarriage with the front  wheels being turnable.  The rear wheels are located under the large pontoons.  There are 4 porthole windows on each side of the helicopter and also two accessible storage compartments at the rear.

 Inside there's a cockpit with controls and pilot seat and behind that are two passenger seats.

 Here's how the cockpit looks with the pilot in place.

Here's the top view of the helicopter's interior.  There's definitely a lot of space for cargo in the rear.

 Following are some more pics of the assembled helicopter.  Fit and finish is excellent, in my opinion.

The Verdict

I think this helicopter looks really nice and scales well. As mentioned earlier, it has excellent fit and finish.  Clutch is great and there's quite a bit of play value with the ground vehicle and fueling station accessories.  If you don't like the Sluban minifigures, you could easily replace them with Lego compatible ones.

I paid $10 USD for this set back in 2014 and a quick check of Aliexpress reveals that you can get this set for $12 USD, so it hasn't gone up that much.  The retail price of this set on Sluban's website is around $25 USD right now.

Thanks for looking!  If you want to see some of my other Sluban set reviews, you can find them here.