Old Fishing Store (21310) - Final Thoughts!

We had such a great time building this set. We were really blown away by 3 main things:

1 - the sheer volume of merchandise and "trinkets" included - both the inside of the shop and the outside are just jam packed with all the equipment you would expect to find in a shop like this. From scuba gear and spear guns to nets and fishing tackle - it's all there!

 

The exterior of the shop has an equally large number of accoutrements - from the fish hanging from the wall, to the seagulls and cat to the cases of fresh lobsters that just came off the boat.

2 - The unique access method - we really liked how the side walls opened up to reveal the interior. When closed, they flow seamlessly into the building and really enhance the completeness and stand-aloneness of the set. When open, they provide a large entry point to access the interior to move things around and just to see what is going on inside the shop.

3 - The overall detail in the rugged look of the set - this was the first set we came across that really accentuated the beat down, jury rigged look of this shop. From the patchwork repairs on the roof to the lopsided tiling on the walls, this look look added such character to the feel of the set.

If there was anything we would have liked to see, it would be more mini-figures. The set only comes with 4 - the proprietor, his son (or so we think), a fisherman and a fisherwoman. A few more customers or perhaps the proprietor's wife would have been nice additions that would have fleshed out the human element to the set a little more.

All in all though. this was a very fun build.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Observation Tower Goes Up!

We finished off the last stage of the bait shop this weekend, putting up the observation tower where the store owner has a complete 360 view of what is around him.

There is a large telescope mounted to the front deck to enable really long range surveillance.

The weather vane complete with chicken on the top is a nice touch. The deck railings extend around the entirety of the tower. Unfortunately, there is no door, so access is via crawling through one of the 2 windows. Internal to the tower is a ladder that stretches all the way down to the lower level.

Somewhat surprisingly, the roof of the tower looks to be in much better shape than that of the bait shop itself. Perhaps because the original construction material is much sturdier. There has definitely been some patching done, as evidenced by the myriad of colors, but it lacks the randomly slapped on boards of the bait shop roof.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Tiling and Roofing Complete!

After a long hiatus, we hit this hard over the weekend and finished everything but the last step of the build.

We started off with finishing the top section of the swinging wall. Visually, there is nothing too much that stands out - it continues with the green tile motif of the rest of the building. There is a vent at the top left of the wall, which swings out just as the bottom section does.

Again, we are such fans of this access design - it's very easy to operate and provides a large space for hands to get into the building and arrange things. It's also a very sleek design that hides very well once the walls are swung back into place.

The next step was to build the roof trusses - these were very standard triangular trusses. I guess you wouldn't really expect much more than the basic for a rundown fish store.

The cobbled together roof over the porch is another character building component to the set. It definitely looks run down and gives the impression that it has been repaired multiple times over the years using whatever materials were on hand. Not many of the original boards remain and the rest look like they are on the verge of falling apart.

The roof provides much the same story - it's clear that patch repairs have been made over the years as leaks have sprung up. I'm not sure how much of the original roof remains under all the random bits of flotsam that have been nailed up.

Some of the local wildlife seem to have taken a liking to the patchy roof - I guess it offers a plethora of sturdy landing spots and is high enough to give a good view of the surroundings and any tasty morsels that might be lying around.

As one would expect, there is an orange tabby cat on the prowl for scraps and defending his scavenging territory from the pesky seagulls.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - So Much Stuff Inside!

And now we move to the inside of the fish store. There were so many items here that I hope I am able to do them justice in my descriptions and photos. It was a bit difficult to get the camera into the store to get the shots that I wanted.

We'll start with an overall shot of everything in the store. Even from here, you can make out the plethora of items ranging along all the walls. Also of note is the humongous spider which seems to have made its home right underneath.

Let's try to get in closer for a better look at just what is in the store. In the far corner, it looks like there are a few pairs of pins hanging on a rod, as well as a buoy and some lengths of chain. Moving towards the camera, we have a yellow pull-cord lamp which seems to be the only source of illumination in the store aside from natural light via the windows. Continuing on, we see a rack of fishing poles and a tackle box along the nearside wall.

The main aisle is absolutely packed with goods for sale. From this vantage point, you can see spear-guns and spears racked by the counter as well as oars in different colors. There are also full sets of scuba gear ready to go, including helmets, dive masks and air tanks. On the checkout counter, you can make out the till in the far corner and a white desk lamp at the near edge of the counter.

Here is a view from behind the counter. You can see some decorative artwork hanging above the side entrance as well as a map of the area and other miscellaneous knick-knacks hanging below. It looks like there is a white life preserver and a sextant. You also get a better look at the diving gear and the boxes of fish hooks stacked beside.

In this top-down view, you get a glimpse of the checkout counter, which looks like someone is in the middle of a transaction. There is cash on the counter as well as a calculator and an ancient white desk lamp (you can just see the very edge of it in this shot). The shop owner keeps a mug and a bottle of something (I'll leave it to your imagination what) beside the till to help him pass the time when the shop is not busy.

The walkway is just as messy and overflowing as the rest of the store. There is a barrel in the middle of aisle filled with random items that just don't fit anywhere else. A large fishing net as well as some miscellaneous tools.

All in all, we are really impressed with how much "stuff" is packed into this small space - whether it's decorations, goods, etc. It gives a really authentic feel of a mom and pop shop where the proprietors are far too busy running the business and getting on with every day life rather than spending time organizing and making things look neat and pretty. Dollars to cents the store owner can tell you which pile, barrel or wall anything is hanging on if you asked.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Externals & The Office!

After putting together the loot chests as we call them, we moved to fleshing out some of the details both on the inside and outside of the store. And by god, did it get a good fleshing out. With each step, more and more items were added, to the point where I hardly knew where to start taking pictures to share with you!

We'll start with the outside and some of the loot chests - these were all placed outside near the entrance to the shop. Either customers or the store proprietor has just returned from a successful trip and has popped into the store for a bit before tending to their goods. Also note the additional touch of having the old, worn tires hanging off the stairs and the pair of life preservers hanging by the door - yet authenticity details!

From here, we'll take a quick peek at the office. We've seen this before in fair detail, so we won't belabor the point.  An access ladder has been added over the window - at least I believe it's an access ladder leading up to the future lookout point. It doubles as security bars over the office window as well. As you can see, once the walls went up, the office became a very tight space that leaves little room after the desk and chair are located.

Even the stairway leading to the office is tight - in fact, it is such a squeeze that even the mini-figs would have to walk sideways to make it through. We tried and they don't fit walking in normally!

Here we get a look at the other window in the office - this one looks like it has been newspapered over (presumably for privacy so nosy customers don't go peering in). The window is capable of opening to provide a measure of fresh air in what is otherwise a rather claustrophobic and stuffy space.

Again, we can see the wear details on the handrails and deck planking.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Loot Chests!

The next chapter of the build starts off with the assembly of a variety of chests and storage containers that will be placed around the set further in the build.

In the top left corner is a crate of TNT - I can only hope that this is for lazy fishermen who prefer to blast fish. This, of course, is the often illegal practice of tossing explosives into the water and relying on the concussive underwater force to stun schools of fish for easy collection. While this seems unethical and heinous, it is far preferable to other possible uses of TNT that could lead to injury or harm of humans.

Below the TNT crate are 3 crates of seafood. Judging by the fairly meager amounts in each crate, I think we can safely presume that these were caught using more legitimate means.

The top right chest is a toolbox - a number of tools went into this chest, including a screwdriver, adjustable wrench, socket drive and a couple other common tools.

The 2 chests below the toolbox contain some equipment that might be used around fishing boats. It looks like there are a couple bundles of TNT (don't know why these are lying around instead of crated up), some pulleys for hoisting nets, a set of swim fins, prybars, and grappling hooks.
 

We'll take a little closer look at some of the chests so you can appreciate the detail of the pieces. The lobsters look true to form shape-wise although the coloring makes them look like they are already cooked. We really appreciated the inclusion of ice in each of the seafood chests - definitely another small touch in the overall detailing of the set. Not only is there ice in each chest but there are even 2 distinct shapes of ice. It's hard to see in these pictures but there are triangle chunks as well as flat tile-shaped chunks.

The crate of fish is similarly iced with 2 different shapes of ice pieces.

And finally, a close-up of the toolbox. You can see the various tools lying inside. The boxes sitting on top are cases of fish hooks - you can't see the printing from this angle but we'll see more of the same inside the fish store.

These chests will be placed strategically through the set as we progress through the build.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Back Entrance

After the excitement of the swinging wall, we continue with the back entrance (actually I think it's going to end up being more of a side entrance) to the store.

I really like the lopsided wooden siding here - it's not because mom was sloppy in attaching them, they are SUPPOSED to be lopsided. Again, this does a really good job of accentuating the overall condition of the building.

In case it wasn't abundantly clear that this was a fishing store, the proprietor has a large fish hanging over the door. And perhaps in a move to appease the occasional tourist who wanders by, the owner also seems to offer boat rentals, as evidenced by the off-kilter sign.

 It would appear that the shop owner had himself a rather successful outing recently, with his catch hanging up and curing in front of the shop. I wonder if he is planning on smoking those later.

This overhead shot gives an excellent view of the layout of the building, with the storefront over to the right and the small office up a narrow flight of stairs to the left. And just to differentiate the 2 areas, you'll notice (if you look really closely) that the color and size of the tiles are different, with the shop tiles being large and dark green and the office tiles being smaller and navy blue

Old Fishing Store (21310) - A Swinging Wall!

Up next are some of the internal features of the building. We start with a simple wall display - it looks like the Fish Store was featured quite prominently in the local paper, enough so that the owner has clipped out the article and framed it proudly near the main entrance.

Upstairs, we can see the small workspace where the owner can take care of his administrative business and also escape for a break once in a while. The green 80's style lamp is a nice touch, again signifying the age and rustic feel of the shop and reinforcing the disconnect from modern society.

With a good start on the internals, we also start putting up the external walls for the building. And here again, there is some really excellent detailing. Amongst the patchwork of the wall, you can see some basic building utilities - a water faucet on one side and a couple of gas and utility meters on the other.

The coolest thing has to be the swinging wall though. This entire wall pivots out in order to allow access to the interior once the set is complete. Presumably the roof level is not removable, so a different method of access was required.

In our previous set (Temple of Airjitzu), we mentioned that we had thus far seen 2 methods of access. The first being the removable floor levels as is common with the City Creator sets and the second was to leave the back completely open (as in the Temple of Airjitzu set). We build our Lego primarily for display purposes, so method 1 is far preferable for us.

This method of the pivoting wall may prove to be our favorite yet (we'll see how things go as we progress through to the completion of the set). If all goes well, it will remove the need to lift off floors to access lower levels while maintaining a full 360 degree display AND allow sufficient access to the interior to move and position mini-figures.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Floors - New & Old

With the foundation set, we move into some of the internal detailing of the building. The store walls have started to come up - again you can see that they have been subject to a lot of patch work over the years. It's hard to say whether green was the original brick color or grey, as both colors seem to be fairly evenly represented.

The shop interior has a simple patterned tile floor, which looks surprisingly pristine. I sort of expected to have some chipped or cracked tiles. Perhaps, the owner is slowly looking to spruce up his shop so it doesn't look so run down.

This set includes some new (at least to me) printed wooden floor plank pieces, which are put to good use adding to the ramshackle ambience of the set. These exposed planks (in 2 different colors) are used both on the deck flooring and the stairs.

Old Fishing Store (21310) - What Is Aragog Doing Here?

We have been working hard on the fishing store and are so far pleased with what we have seen. The foundation is in place and even here, you can start to see some of the detailing. Note the jagged grey pieces at the base of the lattice-patterned deck that are meant to represent the uneven rocks upon which such structures are often perched.

You can also see part of the foundation of the main building itself to the left - again, there are jagged rocks but you can also see crumbling brickwork and masonry that has clearly been patched over time, as evidenced by the different colors of the bricks as well as the differing textures.

And living underneath the building is an Aragog-sized spider! If it's not Aragog himself, it's definitely one of his children, perhaps enjoying a sea-side vacation. I would not be a happy camper to go digging in the crawl space under my house only to come face to face with a spider that was almost as big as me!

Old Fishing Store (21310) - Our Next Build!

The hardest part of completing any build is to decide what to do next! We were tempted to do another Ninjago set (Ninjago City Docks) to complete the series (at least the part of it we want to do) but changed our minds when we saw this sitting in the closet.

There was just something so charming about the run-down, ramshackle look of this set that really drew us to it. As odd as it is to label something so decrepit as "refreshing", this set truly is a nice breath of fresh air from the typical pristine sets that we build. Having the patchwork roof and other evidence of things that have just been cobbled together gives the building real character and a feel of something more. Similar to the battle damage and on-the-go repairs on the Millennium Falcon, the gritty, scruffy look of this building suggests a history and one can only imagine what it has been through.

You can imagine this sea shanty and the salty old dog that runs it being located in a small fishing town, eking out an existence just as his fishing father and grandfather before him did and just as all the other inhabitants of the village continue to do. It's not a fancy tourist trap that caters to vacationers and out of towners. This place is the sort where the proprietor knows your name and won't try to rip you off.

Anyway, stay tuned and watch us cobble this together!