Monday, September 10, 2018

Lepin 02069 Not Lego Tower Crane Set Review - Part One

Oh wow, had so many people ask me to review this on Facebook and Reddit, that I had to build this right away to check it out.  I was going to build some other sets first, but I guess those can wait.   Here for your viewing pleasure is the Lepin 02069 Building Crane set, it's a knock-off of Lego set 7905.  Pictured above is the instruction manual.

 I'm sure Lepin copied the Lego manual exactly, here is the back cover.

I bought my set from Reddit seller Jeremy and it came super quick, like under 2 weeks.  No more waiting for months from Aliexpress anymore!


As you can see, the instructions list the subcomponents of the Building Crane by bag number.  Here's bag one.  It builds the little structures, minifigures and small accessories.

 Bag two builds the building crane base platform.

 Bag three builds the building crane tower.

 Bag four builds the moveable control cabin.

 And finally bag five builds the tower arms.


At least that what happens in a true Lego set, haha.  In reality, the Lepin bags of parts are spread out and they are stencilled in to correspond to the Lego instructions.  So in the above picture, you can see parts bags for subcomponents 3, 4, and 5.

Bag One - Minifigs and Small Buildings

Ok, enough talking, let's start building!

 There are three construction minifigures in this set, all I believe are accurate representations of their Lego counterparts.

 The first build is of the portable potty.

 Oh yeah, got the cushy stuff.

Next up is the construction office with storage lockers, sink and tools.

Brick quality is good so far and no scratches on the window inserts.

Bag One done!

Bag Two - Tower Base


 Apologies for the poor lighting, I was building the Crane set at 3 am.   Gotta do what you gotta do.

 I should remind our dear viewers that this isn't my first bootleg Crane set.  I previously assembled the Sluban Tower Crane set and it has as many similarities as it does differences.  You can find that review here.  https://its-not-lego.blogspot.ca/2016/11/sluban-m38-b0555-tower-crane-building.html.
In the near future, I will be comparing the two cranes, the Sluban Tower Crane vs. the Lepin Building Crane, so we can see which one is better.

The crane platform consists of a lot technic and plate pieces, making it super rigid.

 Almost finished the crane's tower base.  Installed the guard rails and tool rack.

 Finally, I attached the support rods that will be attached in the next step that hold the crane tower in place.

Bag Three - The Tower 

 As you can guess, this will be the tower's most repetitive build, assembling the girders and supports.

 It comes together pretty fast.

 The crane's tower is four girder sections high.

Here is the center support beam that gets inserted down the shaft.

 It is held in place by technic pins to provide the backbone for the tower.

To get to the control cabin, there's a ladder that that goes all the way up the tower.  There's also a red valve at the base of the tower, not sure what that represents in real life.

The crane's tower is held in place to the base by these red pins.

 With the supports in place, there is absolutely no sway or flexing of the tower. It is rock solid.


Bag three completed!  Pretty awesome looking so far!    I'll finish off this blog post tomorrow with Part Two of the Lepin 02069 Building Crane set.   See you then!



Thursday, August 30, 2018

Lepin 02058 Not Lego People in Park Set Review


Hey brick fans, got a new set to review.  This one is really new, it's the Lepin 02058  People in the Park set and is a bootleg of LEGO City Fun in the Park City People Pack (60134).  I wish I could say it's identical but as we will see later, it's not quite.

 This set consists of 14 minifigures and a lot of accessories.  Let's take a look at them now.

 I ordered this set from my favorite Reddit seller named Jeremy and it came superfast, like one week.

As you know, Lepin is sometimes hit or miss when it comes to the quality of their minifigures, but I can say that the ones that come in this set are all really good.  I'm pretty sure that these ones are very similar to Lego versions.   Let's take a look at the first four, guy in flannel shirt, little playground girl, lady in purple top and lady in green overalls.  The torso designs look crisp and clean and their faces look legit.

 Here's their backsides with back printing on the torsos.  All the hair pieces look like the actual Lego ones too.  Lepin have been known to substitute different hair pieces in the past.

The next five minifigs are the painter lady, little soccer girl and little soccer boy, and senior man and woman.

From the back, only the old man doesn't have any torso printing, everyone else is nicely detailed.

The last five minifigures are presented here.   They consist of guy in wheelchair, hotdog vendor, business lady, playground boy and teen on bike.  The teen on the bike should have a bike helmet and not a white hair piece, unfortunately.

 Their outfits all look right, but I'm disappointed that the bike helmet from this set has been changed.

This guys is supposed to be a teen, but here he looks like an old guy because of the white hair.

 Back view.

 Side view.
Time to look at the accessories now.

Here's the wheel chair.


 The tires look crappy.

 The hotdog vendor and his cart.  I like the flip up design.  But one wiener and bun is not enough.


 Here's business lady with her briefcase at the bus stop.  The briefcase doesn't quite close properly but I'm happy to have the bus stop sign for my Its-Not-Lego town.

 Playground carousel and one of two trees that you get in the set.

 A red bicycle, tires are just so-so.

 A park bench with pink flowers.  The petals actually stay on the stems which is an improvement from previous Lepin sets.

Painter girl gets a paint roller, bucket and a fence to paint.

The two kids are supposed to be playing soccer, so what are they doing kicking a volleyball into the net?

Some food items include a croissant and an apple.

 Here's a picnic table with basket.  Nice doggy.

I forgot to mention the baby minifig that's in the stroller. So I guess you actually get 15 minifigs.  That lawnmower is gonna be loud, but luckily baby hasn't grown any ears yet.

 Lepin says you get 258 pieces, whereas the Lego 60134 set has 157 pieces.

 Not a lot of spare parts, just two hands and one flower petal.


This set would have got a perfect rating from me if it had the proper bike helmet and the wheelchair and bike tires were better quality, but for the price, the set rates a 4.5 out of 5 because the minifigure and accessories quality was very good.

Monday, August 20, 2018

Bela 10648 Not Lego Pizza Van Set Review


And we're back!  With another bootleg Lego set to review.  This one is the Bela 10648 Pizza Van, which is a complete knock-off of the Lego set 60150 City Pizza Van.  I notice now that both Lepin and Bela don't put any company names or set numbers on the instruction manuals anymore, I think this is due to customs seizures in Europe.


 The stickers are pretty cool with this set and I almost regret not using them on the Pizza Van.

Aliexpress says that there are 261 pieces. This is all of them.

 Amongst those parts are two minifigures and a scooter.  There's the pizza chef who works inside the pizza truck and there's a girl who delivers the pizzas.  She comes with long hair and a helmet with visor, so you can choose how she looks.

 Let's build that van now.

Some shots of the chassis coming together.

 Now time to start working on the interior of the van.



Pepperoni pizza anyone?

Maybe you'd like some fries with that.

 Almost done!

 Pizza van complete.

Open for business and deliveries.  I thought the little green round stud was extra but now realize it's supposed to attach to the top of the umbrella.

Just to review, brick clutch and quality is very good, seems to be more consistent with Bela branded sets than Lepin.  Minifig quality is also very good.  No missing, deformed or extra parts.  Instruction manual clearly identifies the parts and sticker sheet colours are good too.  I won this set on ebay for about $10 USD but you can get it off Aliexpress for just a bit more.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my quickie review.