I thought it would be a lot of fun for me and my mom to build this together. She had very little experience building Lego and this would be my first set in more than 20 years, so we were a little apprehensive with the thought of jumping back into the Lego world with this set. Not only does it have almost 2,500 pieces but is classified by Lego as an "Expert" set required advance building techniques. But never ones to shy away from a challenge, we said what the heck and dove on in!
The Brick Separator
There were a few differences that I noticed right away between this set and those of my old Lego days. The first was this odd looking orange piece:
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| Brick Separator |
It's Lego's new "Brick Separator". I was initially very pleased that they came up with this and included one in the set but as I used it a few more times, I didn't find it to be too helpful as I had hoped. The leading edge is still not thin enough to get between pieces unless you had already created a gap (with your fingernail, pocket knife, or any other thin instrument).
Once a gap was formed, it seems to work OK but really, if I've already created a gap, I could easily pry the pieces apart using whatever tool I was already working with. I guess using the plastic separator reduces the chances of scratching or gouging the pieces vs. a metal knife or screwdriver.
Numbered Bags
One of the things that drove me nuts about Lego in the past was how long I spent shuffling through the entire set looking for pieces. Lego has since tried to minimize that pain by breaking down the build process into smaller "chapters" and organizing the pieces for each chapter into numbered bags. So instead of searching through all 2,500 pieces of this set for a dinky little 1x1 green plate, I only have to search through 600 or so. It makes a big difference!
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| Bags numbered for Chapters 2, 3, and 4 |
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| Instructions broken into 4 chapters |
Minifig Detailing
Yet another improvement in the Lego set is the detail on the minifigures. Check out the fancy hairstyle on this lady. Back in my day, all the hair pieces were identical and looked like the characters were wearing molded pieces of clay around on their heads.
Highlighted Instructions
I was pleased to see that Lego has increased the clarity of their instructions by highlighting the new pieces added in each build step. I remember having to scour the instructions as a kid, looking to see where each new piece had to be placed. Now, new pieces have a yellow border surrounding them and are far easier to pick out.
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| New pieces are highlighted with a yellow border |
Flimsy Instruction Manual
Unfortunately, one of the things that still hasn't changed is the limp-spine instruction manual that comes with the Lego sets. With smaller, less complex sets, the manuals would likely be less of a problem as they would be much thinner.
However, with the number of steps (and thus pages) involved in this build, the floppy manual proved to be an annoyance very quickly. Particularly as both my mom and I were working on this together, it needed to be propped up so that we could both reference it at the same time. Trying to prop it up with it fully open resulted in pages sagging and obscuring half the diagram. Curling one side of the book behind the other led to the curled pages unfurling and the book sagging. LEGO - PLEASE ISSUE YOUR MANUALS WITH A COILED SPINE!!! That would have made it far less aggravating.
In the end, we came up with a workable solution. We used a clothespin to prevent the pages from unfurling when curled back on themselves. And then, borrowing a picture frame holder from a family photo, we made a stand which worked decently.
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| Our clothes-pinned manual sitting on a picture frame holder |
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