Lepin 15001 Not Lego Brick Bank Set Review - Part Two

Welcome back to Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com!   In this post I will finish reviewing the Lepin Brick Bank modular building set.  In case you missed the first part of this review, you can find it here.

In my previous post, I finished building the first floor of the bank and laundromat.  I modified my set by exchanging most of the sand blue bricks with white bricks.  Now we will start working on the second floor of this establishment.   

The second floor basically has three sections;  the staircase leading up to the banking assistant's desk, the bank manager's office and the atrium of the banking center.

The exterior walls of the second floor were white, so I didn't have to do any more brick substitutions.

Pictured above is the second level ventilation shaft which sits between the assistant's area and the bank manager office.

The windows go in for the manager's office.

The manager's office with all the furnishings put in place.  The manager's office has floor to ceiling windows that look out onto the bank mezzanine.  

Here's an overhead shot of the manager's office.  He has a large desk, a table lamp and office chair.  He's also got a small cabinet with an owl statue on it and a guest chair.

I was thinking about changing the green wall to white but then figured the office needed some contrast so i left it as is.

Hmm,  what kind of bank fees can I charge today?

The office assistant's area is pictured above.  She has a desk with a lamp and computer on it.  I'm not sure what the machine is supposed to be in the corner.

The second floor of the Brick Bank's exterior is almost complete.

Here's some views of the second floor as I rotate it 90 degrees each time.

You can see that there's another staircase, this one goes to the roof.

This view shows the open area above with lots of windows.

Last look at the interior of the second floor.

The corner clock is installed. I really like the design.   The police woman doesn't come with the set.  She's just doing her rounds.

The support beams for the roof are in place.  I encountered a missing white brick piece that I had to substitute with my own piece.

This is the giant chandelier that hangs over the bank branch.

I was trying to figure out how to take better pics of the chandelier, so I quickly rigged up these temporary supports to hold up the roof.  I should point out that the Lepin crystals kept falling off the chandelier, so I poked each of the chandelier arms into a glue stick and then re-attached each crystal to secure them.

Look up, look way up.

Continuation of the  brick bank roof.  

Roof opening for the skylight.

Here is the completed roof of the Brick Bank.

I also was short one pulley piece and I don't have any extras of this unique part.  I had just enough to complete the roof detailing but not enough for the winch.  At some point in the future, I will probably modify the roof to remove the winch altogether.

The completed Lepin Brick Bank.  Too bad there's no signage to identify the bank over the front entrance.

Here's the other side with the Laundromat entrance.  The third missing piece I discovered was the 2x3 arch brick that is supposed to be displayed as a laundry machine above the front door.  I made due with just a regular 1x3 brick instead.  

Instead of using the pair of blue pants above the awning, I substituted a red top instead.

The Lepin Brick bank is now the seventh bootleg modular building to be added to It's Not Lego town.  I enjoyed creating the bank.  Luckily the three missing brick pieces didn't hinder the experience too much.   Thanks for looking!

Lepin 15001 Not Lego Brick Bank Set Review - Part One

Hi all, I'm back with another alternate Lego set review.  Today I'll look at the Lepin 15001 Brick Bank modular building set.  Unlike my other Lepin modular sets, this set was missing a number of key pieces, so I had to improvise the construction to complete the build.  I also made some of my own modifications to this set and I'll point these out later in this review.

The Lepin Brick Bank has 2413 pieces according to the information provided on Aliexpress.  I always wonder how accurate these numbers are given that the findings of more or less parts by others who have previously built the Brick Bank modular.  I got the thicker base plate with this set and luckily the base didn't warp too much.

I'm pretty happy with the minifigs that come with this set.  

You can see that formation of the brick bank and attached laundromat above.  Got a big stack of cash against the back wall.  I like the design of the bank lobby floor.

I started to build up the walls with the sand blue bricks that came with the set.  And then I thought, hey this is a really unique brick colour that I don't have and it seems kind of wasted that they are on the sides of the building that most will never see.

So just as I had completed the exterior wall, I stopped and reviewed the instruction manual to see where all the sand blue bricks were used.  I then determined where I could sub in a different colour without affecting the overall outward appearance of the Bank.

Since white bricks are pretty common, I swapped out the sand blue walls and replaced them with the white bricks that you see above.  Yeah it does look a bit plainer, so that is the tradeoff.

Here's some another view of the first floor with the white walls.

The gray brick pillars go up as do the windows and doors.  My bank windows were pretty scuffed up so not too happy about that.  The sand blue window and door frames of the laundromat are a nice touch.  The columns are clad in bevelled pieces but these differ greatly from the the pieces you get on the original Lego Brick Bank set.   These ones all have dimples on them and I hate them, they look so shitty.  I would surely replace them, if I can find the correct pieces.

More progress on the first floor interior.  The bank teller window is in and the bank vault gets the grated ceiling that lifts up for easy access.

The original Brick Bank laundromat design uses two window frame parts as the laundry table.  I always try to save window parts for future mocs and mods, so I just used subbed in some regular 1x2 bricks.

Here's another look at the crappy tiles I was talking about earlier.  Yuuck!

Here's the closeup view of the detailing above the Bank entrance.  Interesting use of wings and wolverine claws here.

Building up the bricks above the windows.  Nice use of the transparent bricks to simulate stained glass.

I was having trouble finding all the parts necessary to putting the vault door in place, so I skipped it.  At this point I was wondering if I had some missing pieces or not.

Here's a look inside the bank vault.  The safety deposit box/washing machines unit put in place.

I found all the parts for the bank vault door!   Luckily the stairs fold up so it was pretty easy to access the vault to install the door.

This is the view of the first floor of the Brick Bank with a better view of the Laundromat.

Here's the laundromat entrance.  The laundromat window glass pane is printed, just like the bank windows.  I was happy that it wasn't too scratched.

Another progress shot of the first floor.

Window arches installed.

Peering into the laundromat.

The vault door will really lock, if you turn the handle on the door.

This is how the ventilation shaft looks like.  The bank robber minifig would lower himself into the shaft to gain entry to the bank vault.   So, the original Brick Bank design only features a one storey wall between the bank and laundromat.  This would make it really easy for any robbers to get access to the bank, just by scaling the wall from the laundromat side.  

I decided to rectify this problem by building up the wall to two storeys.

Now the robbers really have to work at gaining access.

The ventilation shaft is easily removable, just in case your minifig gets stuck inside.

In fact, you can pull out the washing machine unit.  The wall above the laundromat entrance is the only place where the sand blue bricks were preserved.

Here's what the bank, washing machine unit looks like.

There are different holes in the washing machines that let you deposit coins and gems into the bank's safety deposit boxes.

I pulled out the side wall to give you a better view of the laundromat.

Here's a last look at the exterior of the Brick bank with first floor completed.

The bank's exterior wall.

One last look at the laundromat from above.

This ends part one of the Lepin Brick Bank review.  I'll look at the second floor of the bank in greater detail on part two of this blog post coming soon.

Thanks for taking the time to look at the pics!