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!

Super Star Destroyer (10221) - Final Thoughts

I am a Star Wars fan, so needless to say, I am biased in my thoughts on this set. The real deciding point was how much my mom ended up liking it in the end. She did not start off as a Star Wars fan but by the end, I think she appreciated the set and the franchise in general. In fact, she liked it so much that she has proclaimed her like and desire to do some additional sets - Millenium Falcon, Imperial Star Destroyer, B-Wing, Y-Wing, AT-ST, AT-AT. I would say that is quite the turnaround!!

This build was definitely challenging, even with both my mom and I working on it. The similarity in the colors of the pieces required focus to not only select the correct pieces but then assemble them correctly. There were a few instances in which I picked the wrong color pieces and my mom put them together incorrectly due purely to the similarity of color and the difficulty in making out the instructions.

Aside from color, the sheer size made this a challenging build as well. Finishing at over 4 FT in length, this took up a large portion of our Lego table and at times, it was even partially hanging off the side. This made it a little unwieldy to flip upside down and rotate to continue building it. Not to mention trying to take decent pictures of it! With previous sets, I could leave it on the table and get some fairly un-cluttered shots but with this behemoth, most of my pictures either have the surroundings in them or I had to move everything onto the floor to try and get a shot of just the ship.

There were also some blind build sections, which took a little maneuvering to snap together. Examples include attaching some of the engine sections underneath the chassis and snapping the two "wing" top deck sections onto the frame. These were done completely blind and to this day, I am not sure whether ALL the snaps were done. Seeing as it hasn't fallen apart, I am working with the assumption that enough of them were successfully aligned and snapped. :)

The look of the set is spectacular. It is definitely meant more as a display set than a play set. The play functionality is very limited but the raised stands and the descriptive placard really make this set look superb sitting on whatever display surface you have chosen.

Super Star Destroyer (10221) - It's All Done!

This past weekend was a long weekend, and we made excellent use of the extra time off! We finished off the super star destroyer and even found a place to display it (on top of the piano).

The view from the back end is pretty impressive too. You can almost imagine the engine banks igniting and propelling this behemoth around. Maybe Lego 50 years from now will be able to do just that!

We had a lot of fun putting this together, despite the occasional griping about the lack of color :)

We are still waiting for pieces to finish off the carousel (fingers crossed there are no problems getting them). We've already started thinking about what we might build next. Continuing on the Star Wars theme, and particularly the Ultimate Collection Series sets, mom has said she likes the looks of the B-Wing and the Y-Wing in particular. So those may be coming up in the near future. She also likes the AT-AT and AT-ST sets, so those are a possibility as well.

In non-Star Wars related sets, she is a fan of WALL-E as well as the Technic Bucket Excavator. I was a little surprised at this since it's not, at least in my opinion, a really good looking set. I think she was drawn to it because of the plethora of yellow pieces hahaha.

So keep your eyes peeled to see what we get up to next!