Grand Carousel (10196) - Final Thoughts

I have to admit that I was generally disappointed by this set. Previous Lego sets that we have built have all been sturdy and well designed. This set, unfortunately, smacked of something that an in-experienced designer but forth and the QC department flubbed on by allowing it to pass in its current state.

The base of the carousel was far too flimsy, with pieces popping off with the slightest touch or adjustment. The movement was also rough, resulting in the motor stalling out constantly when attempting to use the power function. I was tempted to blame this on Lepin and their (possibly) less precise fit of their pieces. However, after reading similar reviews from users who have built the Lego set and found the exact same issues, I have to conclude that the issues are due to Lego's design and not to anything Lepin may have done.

The canvas top once again struck me as being shoddy and incomplete work. The attachment mechanism between the support struts and the canvas pieces was lazy and lacked rigidity and security. The floating struts with no bottom anchor only served to reinforce this impression.

The saving grace of the set is its vibrancy of color and how it catches the eye. I would, however, only use this as a display piece. It is far too brittle and temperamental to hold up to any play. Overall, I must say that I would NOT recommend this build. There are other, equally colorful sets out there that have a much stronger design, meaning less headaches during the build and more play functionality upon completion.

Grand Carousel (10196) - The Finishing Touches

We finally did it! After more than 8 months of off-and-on building, we have finally put this one together.

Last night, we put the canvas top on the carousel and mounted the final decorative flag on the top. Both mum and I were struck by the flimsy design of the canvas top and were rather un-impressed by Lego's design. It felt lazy and unpolished. The canvas sheets are held on by a series of flexible "struts" but the method of attachment is poor. The top of the sheets are very loose and tend to slip off their moorings, which are a single post on each of the struts.

As you can see from the photo below, the canvas sheet is slipping off, which is not surprising given that the blue post is holding it on by sheer force of friction and nothing else. The design should have included something to snap onto the bottom of the post and prevent slippage.

Another disappointing aspect of Lego's sloppy design with the canvas top is the lack of an anchor point for the struts at the bottom end of the canvas. You can see here that the struts simply sit on top of the canvas sheets with no method of attachment. 

Regardless, if you don't look too closely at details like this, the set is a pretty one. Very colorful and certainly a good addition to our ferris wheel.

Grand Carousel (10196) - Almost at the finish line!

As you well know, this past weekend was the Labour Day long weekend. And what does a long weekend mean? Good progress on Lego, of course!

We got all the individual rides on the carousel done as well as all the fascia decorations. All that is left to do now is to put the top on and the whole thing will be done!

This first picture is from Saturday evening after we got all the horses and sleds built and people in them. When you turn the carousel, each of the carriages moves up and down - just like on a real carousel. Most move pretty smoothly but there is a lame grey horse that seems to get stuck on the floor plate. This is due to the fact that the floor plate keeps popping up and is a big pain to try and push back down because you invariable end up popping something else up! So we decided just to leave it and that the lame horse adds to the story. :)

Speaking of the story, we had one mini-figure where the head came pre-attached to the body. And unfortunately, it was stuck on there so hard that we couldn't pull it off and so we had to leave it as is. It would not have been such a big deal except that it ended up being a bearded man's face on a flowery shirt that would be more suited to a little girl.

So either this person was some odd cross-dressing dwarf of a man or it was a greedy little girl who had smeared her face with chocolate sauce as she was such a little piggy that she couldn't wait until after the ride to eat her Nutella crepe. I am partial to the second scenario as it reminds me of myself .... but I'll let you decide. Here she (or he if you go with story #1) is below:

The fascia decorations are quite intricate and ornate. Once we got them on, the carousel really started looking pretty fancy and akin to what you would see at a real fair. This is the bigger and fancier of the 2 types of fascia.

 I forgot to take a separate picture of the smaller fascia but you can see it below. It's the one with the large golden dish in the middle.

And here is the carousel on Sunday night after we had attached all the fascia pieces. It is really coming along nicely.

In fact, it is far enough along that we are contemplating what to build next. We were at the Lego store on Saturday and saw a couple of new sets that caught our eye but we were kind of thinking of leaving those for the time being so they could be put on our Christmas wish lists (yes we are already thinking that far ahead). We have a few thoughts on what to do next. I, of course, would like to do something Star Wars so we'll see if we can find a colorful one that mom wouldn't mind building as well.