Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Lepin 05029 Not Lego Star Wars Resistance X-Wing Fighter Set Review



Hi.  Today I'll be reviewing the Resistance X-Wing Fighter bootleg Lego set by Lepin.  The model number is Star Wnrs 05029 and it has 740 pieces.  I decided to try a different Aliexpress store this time around.  The store is called BlueSky 326 and they had the cheapest price.  What surprised me is that they used DHL to ship this item.  Normally Aliexpress sellers only use DHL to ship larger or higher value items. 

As you can see this set comes with the parts in approx ten separate bags.  Besides the instruction manual, there is a sticker sheet.

Ok, let's start building!  I'll snap some pics of my progress every time I finish 20 steps from the X-Wing manual.

Here's how the X-wing base chassis and wing mechanism look like after step 20.

On step 40, we create the structure for the Resistance X-Wing's nose.

At step 60, the fuselage is complete and the cockpit is almost ready.

The aft section is built up and the canopy has been added in step 80.  There are supposed to be two gears that control the opening of the wings, and I found that one of the smaller gears was missing from my set.  This is a critical piece, but luckily I remembered that I had a couple of spares in my brick stash.  I would have been really disappointed and upset if I didn't have that gear, because the wing functionality would not work without it.


We are now at the halfway point, step 100.  Landing gear has been installed and the sides panels are done.  The canopy doesn't close properly but I have a fix for that, which I will show you later.


At step 120, I start working on the wings.

Oops, I forgot to take pictures at steps 140 and 160, but that's ok, it was just more wing construction.  At step 180, we finish the last of the 4 wing segments.

The Lepin Resistance X-wing is nearly complete at step 200.  All that's left is making and attaching the rear engines.


All done!  Included with the X-wing fighter is a small diorama that has some storage containers and a vaporator tower that is on fire.

In this pic you can see that Lepin gives us a crappy pilot's helmet that doesn't have the transparent visor.  This was also evident in the Lepin First Order X-Wing set 05004.





Review Summary

Minifigures:  You get the same four as the original Lego Resistance X-wing model, but Poe's helmet is inferior.  Minifig print quality is good except for BB-8 whose top ring is lopsided.



Build Quality:  Brick clutch is good, however the canopy failed to close properly.

Missing or Deformed parts:  A critical gear piece that controls the opening and closing of the wings was missing from the set.  I replaced it with a piece I already had.

Price:  I paid around $25 USD which makes it about one-third the price of a Lego Resistance X-Wing  75149 model.

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Lepin 05038 Not Lego UCS Star Wars SandCrawler Set Review - Part Three

Hello and welcome back to Its-Not-Lego.blogspot.com.  Today, we will continue our review of the Star Wars UCS Sandcrawler building set.  It's not the Lego 75059 version, but a knockoff version Lepin model 05038.   In our previous blog post, I put up some pictures as I was building the first 40 steps as I followed the Lepin manual.   Now we will continue the build from steps 50 and onwards.

Step 50



Here's how the Lepin Sandcrawler is progressing so far.   The base and lower side walls have been installed along with the pivot mechanism which will control the rear treads.  On step 50, I added the lower side cladding and was supposed to attach the ladder but I couldn't find the two black arms that hold it in place.   The pivot mechanism is a bit stiff but seems to work for the moment.

Here's another view before we move on.

Step 60.


We are now at step 60 of the manual.  In the previous 10 steps, all we did was put down some long tiles on the floor of the Sandcrawler.  I think this is used to mark off the areas where the droids will be located later. 

I applied the stack of bricks at the front of the Sandcrawler that will be used as the front door pillars.

 Steps 67 - 70.

The height of the front pillars was increased with more bricks, and one of the side panels has been constructed.  The yellow door opens up into the cargo area.

This is a look from the other side.

Now both side panels have been added.

Front view looking back.


On step 70, we added the support beams that connect the front pillars with the side panels.


There is also a sliding mechanism along the inside. I think this will be used for as part of an arm to pick up the droids.

This build seems to go on and on, I still have so many bricks left to attach.

Construction of the back of the Sandcrawler begins.

And here's the completed detailing.  Looks pretty cool.

Support beams installed between the back wall and the side panels.

Roller ramps added underneath each opening on the inside of the side panels.

A closer look.

A look at the technic pieces that hold the back wall in place.

Just a few more pics.

side view.

top view.


Rear view.   This brings us to step 79.

I'll stop here for now.  I'm aiming to wrap up the construction by the next blog post, I promise.

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Lepin 05038 Not Lego UCS Star Wars Sandcrawler Set Review - Part Two



Hi there.  Today we are going to review the building of the Lepin UCS Star Wars Sandcawler 05038.  As with my other bootleg brick set reviews, I will take pictures every ten steps or so to show you the progress of my construction.  I don't bother sorting my bricks, so I just leave them in their plastic bags and try to memorize where I last saw the parts I need.  Sometimes, it works and sometimes it doesn't, lol.

Step 10


Here is the bottom of the Sandcrawler after step 10.  The first pic above is also step 10.  As I'm building it, I can't help but think that it's not as big as I imagined the set would be.  So far the bricks look fairly clean and there's not a lot of scuffs or scratches as I encountered on the Lepin Modular sets.  Clutch is good and no loose parts yet.

Step 20 

Before I continue back to the construction, I want to digress a bit.  I've accumulated a fair amount of bricks from Lego and non Lego sets over the years.  Where possible I want all of my bricks to be as compatible with Lego as possible.  That includes clutch and colour similarity.  In the event I find some bricks to be substandard (like MegaBlocks), I keep those bricks separate from the standard ones.

A lot of people would probably just throw out the off colour or poor fitting bricks but I keep them and then look for opportunities to use them without affecting the appearance or clutch of the model I'm building.

In the case of the UCS Sandcrawler, there is the perfect opportunity, here in step 20, to swap out some better Lepin bricks for some crappy Megablocks bricks.  There is a subfloor between the brick tiles if you look at the picture above.  Bricks are used to provide stability but are never seen again after the plate bricks have been applied.  It is here, where I have swapped in some Megabloks for some Lepin bricks.

Step 30


If you couldn't quite figure out which bricks, I have now substituted them with pink bricks in the pic above.  Yeah sometimes I get stuck with these off-colour bricks but there's little purpose to them.  So I bury them inside a building or inside the floorboards of this Sandcrawler.  Another example where I used pink bricks is under the Lepin Town Hall modular front steps.  The bricks that came with the set originally can then be repurposed in another set, or be used in the case of missing pieces.  Once I put this Sandcrawler together, it won't be coming apart, so only you and I know what's inside of it.  Shh, it's our little secret.  I'm curious to know if it's just me or does anyone hide undesirable bricks inside their sets?

Ok, back to our construction process.  In step 30 we are putting down the gearing that will help to turn the future Sandcrawler tracks.

Step 40

We've now hit step 40 and page 23 of the manual.

More technic pins and bricks applied.

Another view of the knob and gearing that will steer the Sandcrawlers giant treaded wheels.

This will all be invisible soon.


Lower rear view.

At this point, everything is holding together well and I have had no missing or deformed parts.

 I want to mention that the Lepin UCS Sandcrawler manual is 143 pages long and there are 121 steps used to build this iconic Star Wars vehicle.   I've decided to split the construction process into three parts so that each blog post will span 40 steps of the build, so the next blog post will cover steps 41 thru 80 with the obligatory pictures of course.

If you missed the preliminary pre-construction blog post of my Lepin Sandcrawler, you can find it here.   See you in a few days!