AT-AT (10178) - First Steps!

Surprisingly, mom has managed to scrounge up a few hours over the past few days to work on our set. In addition to getting the last 2 legs built and mounted, we also installed the power pack and had the chance to see the little guy walk.

The walk is highly reminiscent of the movie - it plods along ponderously (as something of its size should). It's actually pretty cute as it walks around. It does have a habit of pulling to the left though. I guess the bright side to that is that you can set it down and leave it to itself, knowing that it will just keep doing large circles.

AT-AT (10178) - The Adventure Begins

We got quite a bit done this past weekend, finishing off the engine compartment and one of the legs.

The engine compartment was pretty tricky. As expected, there were a lot of small moving parts that had to be aligned properly in order to work. To check our work periodically, we plugged in the power box and turned it on just to make sure that things were turning smoothly and working as intended (insofar as we can tell anyway with just the engine casing).

With the engine compartment finished, we moved onto the first leg. Mom was unbelievably excited to build it. She was literally bouncing up and down in her seat with anticipation. The foot and leg are well detailed - you can imagine some of the struts being muscles and tendons. And the articulation on the joints is very well done. There is clearly an ankle and a knee, both of which have a wide range of motion. The top has a 3rd joint, which I am sure will become a hip of sorts once it is attached to the body.

Mom had a great time moving the leg around even without it being attached to anything. She went so far as to proclaim that maybe we should get a whole bunch of the AT-AT's and have them all walking around the house.

We probably won't get much done for the next few days - mom has already reminded me that Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are very busy TV days for her. This week in particular, with finales for a few of the shows that she follows. That's ok, I have more than a few video games that I need to play as well!!

AT-AT (10178) - Unveiling Our Next Build

Well, we've decided on our next build - actually, not just decided, we've got it in our hot little hands already.

Since our last build was the carousel, we decided to return to (my favorite) Star Wars theme. In keeping with the mantra of our builds, this is another retired set. And if the title of the post hasn't already given it away, we are going to be building the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport).

It's going to be our smallest build thus far, with "only" 1137 pieces. Aside from its unique look, it also has a power function - something mom is particularly excited for. She has had visions of the completed AT-AT walking around our Lego table while we work on future sets. I have to admit I am pretty stoked to see it in action as well.

Hopefully we will get some time to start on it this weekend. Mom has a very busy TV schedule during the first half of the week (as she never neglects to inform me) so Lego is just an end of week and weekend activity for us.

I leave you with this tantalizing teaser of things to come.

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.

Grand Carousel (10196) - Carousel parts have arrived!!!

Well, after months and months of waiting and delays, the missing pieces for our Grand Carousel have finally arrived!!! We got the parcel in the mail last Friday. Oddly enough, the postage sticker on it indicates that it was redirected through Samoa which I found very strange as that isn't exactly on the way from China to Canada. But anyway, the main fact is that it finally got here.

The good news is that we didn't really miss doing Lego too much since we stopped a few months ago. The spring, summer and fall months tend to be pretty busy with yardwork and gardening, leaving precious little time for luxuries like Lego. We've tried to sneak in an hour here and there since getting the pieces but haven't made enough progress to warrant any photos.

In other news, I just got an email from Lego unveiling their newest set in the Star Wars series. The NEW Ultimate Collectors Series of the Millennium Falcon. This beast has over 7,500 pieces and will be retailing at $900. $900!! Good thing I started saving up for this a while ago, it looks like I will need every penny of my Lego fund! The official release date is October 1 .... can anyone say Merry Early Christmas for us?

According to certain online news outlets, the new box for this colossus of a set is so large that it will come on wheels, kind of like a pull-behind piece of luggage. This will certainly be appreciated by fans who would otherwise have to lug the behemoth through the mall. I know when I bought the re-release of the Death Star last year, my arms felt like they were going to fall off by the time I got back to the car. And that set only had around 4,000 pieces. If I had to carry the new Millennium Falcon through the mall, I would probably have to go through a month-long training regimen first to ensure I didn't drop it partway back to the car and ruin the box!

Anyway, stay tuned for progress on the Grand Carousel. It may be a little slow in coming until the snow starts falling but we are still here!