Lepin 15007 Not Lego Market Street Modular Building Updated

These last couple of weeks have been especially chilly so it was comforting just to laze around at home with a mug of hot chocolate and play with my fake Lego brick sets.  I've been wanting to modify my Lepin 15007 Market Street modular, so this was an opportune time to attack the project.

If you don't know what the Lepin Market Street modular building looks like, here it is.  It's an identical bootleg of the Lego Market Street modular model 10190.  If you want to see my past review of the Lepin Market Street modular you can find it here.

The changes I'm showing you today could be applied to either the Lepin clone or the Lego original modular.

My changes are focused primarily on the building itself and not the adjoining covered market stall.

You might know that I'm not a big fan of the Market Street design.  Specifically, I don't like the front facade with it's repetitive use of windows and doors.  I decided to blow out the staircase leading up to the front door.  I also had a spare bay window part and did a test fit on the main floor to see how it would look.

You might have noticed the little bike on top of the bay window.  My plan was to convert the Market Street building into a three storey bike shop. I will review each floor in more detail later in this post.

Here's what the building  looks today.  I've retained the original footprint of the building and the original colours on each of the three floors of the Market Street design.  I also kept intact the beige detail features on the first and second floors.

The overall height of the building hasn't changed too much.  I reduced the height of the raised foundation and increased the remainder of the floor heights, particularly on the third floor. I had to supplement some white and dark gray bricks because I didn't have enough dark blue and light blue bricks to use.

Credit goes out to www.Boxtoy.co for the idea of the Hub sign.  I found it while searching for Lego bike shop pictures on the internet.  Here's the link to their cool moc, the Lego HUB Bike Shop Cafe.

http://www.boxtoy.co/2015/06/lego-hub-bike-shop-cafe-MOC-Instructions.html

If you recall, the original Market Street design had bricked-in windows in the rear.  I added some windows on the first and second floor.

I might replace the first floor window with a door and add a winch to the second floor to hoist bikes up to the second floor.

I've got a small window and another full height window on the second floor which I can change to a door in future.

On the first floor, I removed the foundation windows and staircase.  The front door was relocated to the side instead of being in the centre in order to accommodate the new bay window.  I added some new steps leading up to the front door and planted some flowers under the bay window.  I retained the original awning and little windows over the front door.  

On the second floor, I added larger windows and the Hub sign on the front.  I toyed with idea of making the entire front all large windows but then changed my mind and decided to put in a smaller window with a flower box instead.

Here is one of the second floor designs I considered.  I might still attach the bike back onto the Hub sign.  Feel free to comment if you prefer the three large window design or the two large and one small window design.

I really liked the little third floor terrace that came with original Market Street design, but I had to get rid of it to accommodate my new studio apartment.  I've kept one of the arched windows and the original door gets replaced by a window.

The terrace is gone, so sad.

The rooftop is removable to access the third floor.

Now, lets look at the inside.   Here's the first floor.  It is dedicated to bike sales and there are a few on display.  I have a counter and computer display/cash.  I need to add some more bike accessories, like bike pumps, handle bars and baskets in future.  I should have added a customer mini figure to keep the clerk company.

Oh, I should mention that the original Market Street building had a staircase right in the middle of each floor.  I decided to move the stairs to the back of the building to allow more useable floor space.

In case you were wondering, the building is completely modular.  Here's all the separate floors and roof.

Here's the second floor interior.  This is where bike service is performed.

It's hard to see but there is a black bike frame on a hoist and the mini figure is drilling the frame.  There's a white bike that's propped up in the corner, ready for service.  I have a small cabinet and a tool rack that sits under the small window.  There is also a rack that holds two bike tires.  I will  add some more detailed pictures in future.

The third floor apartment consists of two rooms, the bathroom and the bedroom.

The bathroom gets it's own door, a toilet, toilet paper dispenser, a sink and shower stall.

The bedroom has a bed, a chair and a night table.  There was a table lamp, but I didn't attach it firmly enough and it fell out.  The only way to get it back in, is to dis-assemble the front facade.

One last look from above.

Here's a pic before I added the window box under the small second floor window.

Hope you have enjoyed this tour of my Lepin Market Street mod.  Thanks for looking!

Sluban M38-B0550 Not Lego Cement Mixer Set Review

Hello!  It's Not Lego, it's Sluban.  Yes, today we are going to look at one of the vehicles from the Sluban City construction series.  The featured set is the Sluban M38-B0550 Cement Mixer.

The instruction booklet says we get 296 pieces.

The Sluban Cement Mixer looks to be a proprietary design and not a Lego one.  It's quite a large truck and is fairly accurate.  There is the water tank above the mixing drum that actually rotates.

The front cab has opening doors on both sides and tilts forward.  Too bad there's no engine to be displayed.

My biggest disappointment from this set is the ugly wheels that barely rotate.  I tried reversing the rims and tires but the wheels still don't roll.  Also the placement of the front wheels in relation to the fenders don't look that great either, but that's just me being nitpicky.

I like the way the cement mixer looks from the front.  Sluban only put a single seat in the cab, so it looks kind of weird with the steering wheel being in the middle.

The set also comes with a number of non Lego type minifigures and you also get a small cart for wheeling stuff around.

I think you get 4 minifigs but I think one of them went to get coffee for the others, so he's not in the pictures.

Here's the back of the truck and you can see it has a swivelling discharge chute and hopper at the top. It's only for looks, though because it doesn't do much.

The Sluban set also comes with some other accessories like a sign and a small guard rail.  There is also a shovel which attaches to the side of the cab.

Oh I forgot to mention that there are side mirrors that are situated on both sides of the cab.  You also get a small sticker sheet, but like always I hardly ever use them.

Just some more views of the cement truck in action.

I can say that you get a lot of extra parts with this Sluban set, like almost 20 or 30 spare pieces of random parts.  I didn't encounter any missing or deformed parts.  I would say the brick clutch is about 90% of similar Lego bricks.   The cement mixer looks ok to display but I wish it rolled better.  I am thinking about replacing the wheels, but right now I don't have any extras in my parts stash.

Brand: Sluban

Model:  M38-B0550 Cement Mixer

Number of pieces: 296, but you get extra pieces

 Price paid:  about $7 USD with free shipping.

 Bye and Thanks for looking!

Lepin 15007 Not Lego Market Street Set Review - Part Two

Hi and welcome back to my blog Its Not Lego.  If you've just arrived, we are taking a look at the Lepin 15007 Market Street modular building set which is a knock-off of the Lego Market Street set 10190.  In our previous post we started to build it and completed the foundation, the open market area and the first floor.  You can find that post here.

Second Floor

In this review, we will finish off the second and third floors of the Market Street building.  This part of the build is the least exciting. Essentially you just keep placing bricks all the way around.  The front of the second floor has a doorway and two windows flanking it.  Above the two windows are some small awnings.

As with the first floor of the Market Street building, there is nothing inside the interior except a central staircase.

The light blue bricks are punctuated by light gray creased bricks which gives the Market Street building an old feeling.  Notice the yellow bricks above, where it looks like they have bricked in the windows, just like the first floor.  I kinda wish they had left the windows in, to increase play value.

Here's the second floor completed with a small terrace and railing in front.  So Lepin really skimped out with the two fire hoses that are supposed to make up the top and bottom railing. They are so narrow that the arms that connect the two railings don't stay on. I didn't even bother to put them on.

This is the how the Lepin Market Street building looks with the second floor addition.

Third Floor

Now we start building the third floor apartment.  I say that loosely because since there's no furnishings provided, I'm just guessing that the third floor is an apartment.  There is another door this time flanked by two small arched windows.  Oh, I wanted to mention that the second storey and third storey doors can't even open because of the small terrace and close proximity of the railings.  Really a fail in the design of this building, in my opinion.  Why did Lego even choose to make this Market Street building?

About the only interesting feature of the Market Street building is this third floor patio.  It features a door and seat and a plant (which we will see later).

On the opposite side of the third floor, we get another window and the some roof tiles.

Last look at the third floor before we wrap things up.

Here's the completed Lepin Market Street modular building.

The third floor with completed roof and patio details added.

Right side view.

Lepin Market Street building with adjoining market place.

Tada! All done.  The same problem with the railings is present on the third floor.  I do like the facade details with the lion's head over the doorway.

A final look at the Lepin 15007 Market Street building as displayed in Its Not Lego town.  It won't last long however, as I plan to either renovate the Market Street building or tear it down and repurpose the bricks in the near future.  I really can't stand this building design, I'm sorry to say.

Let me know what you think of the Market Street building.  Do you like it or not?