Jul 19

GREAT Value?! A-Frame Cabin Retro House Delight Day and Night LED Unboxing & Review F9013 FUNWHOLE

In this video we are going to review FunWhole FH 9001 Wood Cabin Retro House with delight lighting kit. We will start off with an unboxing and see what the set contains. From here we will take an overview of the set all lit up and some of the features of the built model. We have some brief comments about the figurines included before a time lapse speed building with commentary. We will look at the specifics of the light and a slight error in the sticker sheet. We will talk about playability, value and design and offer some suggestions for improvements.

This was provided to us by the manufacturer, but the opinions will be our own so let’s get into it. This is a LEGO ‘Compatible’ building construction brick toy set. $30 Amazon Preorder gift card information (til 22 June 2023) can be found on the funwhole.official instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/p/CtI6NlwukT5/?igshid=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

Product can be purchased from: https://www.funwhole.com/products/funwhole-wood-cabin Fun Whole Website: https://www.funwhole.com/

Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Funwhole-A-Frame-Cabin-Lighting-Building/dp/B0BWPV8J9H

Time codes to the Video:

0:00 Introduction
1:08 Unboxing
2:48 Light Features
3:40 General Features
5:05 Figures
5:58 Timelapse Speedbuild
8:23 Light Kit
9:19 Sticker sheet
9:30 Light Kit Improvement
10:16 Playability
10:33 Value
11:18 Design & Wood Cabin Comparison
12:26 Additional Pieces
12:59 Sticker Issue
13:47 Instructions
13:58 Improvement Suggestion

Transcript from the Show

and the moment of truth ….

Oh how good is that?!

G’day everyone Matt Elder Family Bricks here and in this video we’re going to unbox and review this A-frame carbon retro house by funnel set number F9013. It comes included with the Delight day and night lighting kit. We’ll start off with an unboxing and see what the set contains. From here we’ll take an overview of the set all lit up and some of the features of the built model. We have some brief comments about the figurines included before a time-lapse speed build with commentary. We’ll look at the specifics of the light and a slight error in the sticker sheet. We’ll talk about playability, value, design and offer some suggestions for improvements.

This was provided to us by the manufacturer but the opinions will be our own. So let’s get into it.

Please like the video, subscribe to the channel and hit the Bell to be notified when we upload videos. It greatly helps the channel out.

This video is brought to you by macatsim Holiday Homes in Margate and Broadstairs. Great for a week’s holiday or a weekend Escape being just over an hour east of London UK. Treat yourself to amazing sunsets a Lego wall great food visit www.mccatsim.com and mention this YouTube video and we’ll look after you.

Whats in the Box?

It’s all come nicely wrapped get into it and see what’s in here. So we have the front of the box, it’s actually really nice graphic and was printed out well nice and slick. On the back just doing the on off so let’s have a look and see what’s actually in it.

So it looks like right off with some of the actual day and night lights looks like they’re funky brick separator, battery pack, into three lights and tweezers. I love that in fact it comes with tweezers makes life so much easier.

The chunky thick instruction book. so let’s take a shape. Nice and glossy and what do we got there? 420 odd steps and we start going through some of the bags so these are all the bags you’ve got bags number one through twelve and there’s multiples of each there’s about 30 odd in total. But the one thing I did notice is in bag number 12 you’ve actually got some sort of little figures and things. Which could be interesting because certainly last time when the criticisms I had was that they didn’t have any sort of little figures, which put the scale out so hopefully fingers crossed that uh helps address that issue.

Overview

One of the big selling points of this kit is obviously lights. So we’ll just go through and have a look at them. You’ve got a couple in the peak of the A-frame, there another one on the underside of that door, light there for the sliding door, and then we’ve got one for the fire pit. And coming further along, there’s you know one for the bedroom, one for the outside lamp there. And then as we come along even further into here my battery box, there you’ve got a couple in the actual Apex itself and then down in here.

You’ve got some on the ceiling and then also that little fire barbecue. In there has some light as well we come around to the side here you have the strip lighting for the water which helps give that a really nice sort of feel and glow. And then you’ve got one for this sort of lantern here as well. So you’ve got quite a number of Lights which go the whole way around and it gives a really really nice effect.

So just having a little bit of a look at some details, you’ve got this nice little porch area here with a bit of a swing and a sliding door. Under here which works nice the other door does open as well some little logs there for the fires. A little thing here with some food that’s cooking and some other little apples and things like that. A nice little brick build tree which is good to see, really gives it that feel of being off in the woods.

Up on here you’ve, got like a quite a large telescope. It’s almost like a gun and a nice little rocking chair. And downstairs a bedroom down here, and as we keep on coming further around, you obviously have the battery box there. In the top here you have another bedroom with some other paraphernalia and a clock, a little bit hard to see there. And then downstairs is sort of like your little cooking sort of area with the piano and sort of general sort of lounge sort of room to get into.

Coming a little further along, I like the way that they’ve got this little suggestion of the stream. And they’ve also got some really cool funky pieces, like particularly wedge plates in these sort of translucent sort of bluish colors. And then you keep on coming further around over to sort of like a little fishing area or some extra little fish which are being kept. And a bit more of that water hanging off the edge and it’s pretty tight, because one of the things you’d be worried about, just bumping that and those popping off pretty easily, but be moving us around and they’ve stayed on pretty well.

Figurines

This is the first time I’ve actually seen their figures so these are interesting and got some nice printing. And you do have to put them all together which can be a little bit challenging. They do have very specific left and right arms and hands, so you do need to be careful when you’re sort of watching them. I guess with the minifigure having been ubiquitous for the last 40 years, anything that doesn’t look like a minifigure is going to be somewhat “off” in your mind.

But then again, I remember before the mini-figure these other sorts of figures that we used to have. So the mini-figure itself isn’t locked in my head. And this just gives you a sort of comparison point for an actual one as to how they sort of compare with it. These the other two figs which come in the set, so it looks like a mum and a dad. And sort of looking at it it reminds me a little bit of a cross between a Playmobile figure and a mini-figure. I think they have their own charm and they are growing on me.

Speed Build

And now we’ll do a time-lapse Speed Build so you can get a sense of how this all comes together and what the building experience is like. As with anything, you start off with the base. And the base by the time you build it all out it’s a little bit smaller than a 48 by 48 base plate. And in this one it’s quite interesting in that it’s got a little section down the side you can see there in blue, which is for your stream. And you’re building out a little bit of a garden way and now we’re actually building out the elements to the side of the house, laying out some of the floors and going through with the tiling.

And now we’re starting to put in the first lot of lights and attaching them all the way around to the different places they need to go to now starting some of the Interior with the piano and a few bits of the furniture that actually a little fireplace in the middle is quite clever as it holds up the next floor and then you build up some of the front facing of the A-frame itself going through now just doing a bit of the actual floor some more lights and here we do the top part of the front of the A-frame and it has a little cool feature with the actual circular window there’s a couple of beds that you get to build in this and then we go through and we build out part of the downstairs area.

This area too once you actually build it all the way through it’s actually a little bit difficult to get at now we’re going through and doing one side of the A-frame roof there’s just a lot of these little black tiles and every once in a while you put on these stickers for a bit of texture and those stickers can get quite tiresome after a little while here you’re going through and building out the rest of that room which as you can see there’s not really much access for Play.

Putting some flowers on the outside give a bit of texture and a bit of awning adjusting some of the lights just making sure that they’re all feeding into the right places and building out some more of that room before heading on to the second side of the A-frame roof again the black tiles the wood texturing on some of the stickers occasionally and it Clips together quite nicely at the top and then also at the bottom to hold it in place build out the upstairs window.

And then heading around and starting to now really put in all the details and the vegetation starting off with this trellis putting in what looks like some grapes and things and from here it’s just adding in lots of little details and there’s a fair bit of it different Leaf colors and grass pieces along the first story as well before heading off and then actually building up a brick built tree which feels nice and solid and doesn’t look like it’s too janky and missing a whole bunch of leaves. Install the last of the light connections.

And finish up building some of these curious little figures that are in the set do like with this how they’ve given the lights their own sort of little case and you know it’s relatively well done a little bit more exclusive what have you.

Unboxing

So just having a quick little look in tweezers right without those standard battery box brick separator that they have for theirs and then just looking in at some of the lights themselves we can see what’s in each light kit so it looks like you’ve got a couple small one by ones, and then a couple of two by two rounds. Next one’s connector, some extension wires one by one rounds, that looks like a little strip of some description, and the connector well one by one rounds and the USB plug.

And a quick look at the Stick of shade, looks like you got most of the wood panelling in there a few other little ones that you come across I’m not quite sure what that is but we’ll find out the one thing that’s nice when companies are able to build the lights into the kits is you can plan them out a lot better and they look like they’ve got these new pieces as well which have little holes underneath so that you can fit the wires under there more snugly which is a really good development because then it enables the wires to be guided a lot better than what was previously you’re not so much clamping the wires and there’s less frustration with trying to get it squished down in between pieces where it’s not necessarily meant to go because you’ve also got similar little ones here with the little grooves there which are over here in the black as well.

So it’s really clever they’ve come up with something like that these bags are pretty hot open so yeah a good to have a knife handy to get anything.

In terms of playability I think this model is great you’ve got lots of different things for your little characters to interact with and move around with in different spaces and being able to create different scenarios. So I think they’ve done a really great job in ticking off all those sort of main things you’d expect of like a cabin in the woods in terms of value this has got 2061 pieces so I’ll give you three seconds think of a number of how much you think this would retail for?

Three.

Two.

One.

In the US at the moment it’s listed at 99 pounds on their website and in the UK have been told it’s going to be about 120 pounds which has a little nitpick the US and UK price you’d want to be closer together if not the UK price being slightly less but when you think that this is over 2 000 pieces here plus a light kit if you go if you’re a general sort of guide of about 10p or 10 cents per piece you’d be looking well over 200 pounds or 250 American dollars so with this being over half the price of what you’d expect normally I think the value there is quite phenomenal and it’s a little thing but you actually get a proper tree with it as well.

Design

In terms of design I think the design of the last year of these have gotten so much better. This is obviously the current one, this was the first one that they released about a year ago which I did a review for that and at the time. I commented that it just felt too big it was a little bit over scaled for like normal figures and things whereas. Now if this is one of their normal figures that feels like it has all the right proportions.

Whereas this one it just felt like the house itself was just too big if you’re trying to have it in figures and put it in cities and you can even see it with the trees here, they’re basically the same height same type of build. And this one okay it might be location but it feels like it’s being dwarfed by the house a little bit, whereas this one it doesn’t feel that same sort of way. And maybe this base is just a bit bigger so it gives it that chance to just spread out and breathe a little bit more. Whereas this one is much tighter on your traditional 32 by 32 sort of size.

So for me I can really see over the course of a year just how much their design sensibility has grown and sort of been refined. And they’ll probably have more pieces and then things to play with now but they both sort of still feel like they could be in the same universe in the same space. If you want to see my previous review on this one check up in the card or around the video for it.

Left Overs

These were the pieces that were left over at the end of the build. The main ones which I would highlight is at the end of the first part of putting the roof together you did have a whole bunch of these pieces left over. Which did seem a bit weird and I was sort of wondering do they get used later on and then you do get almost a full set of spare arms and hands. And there aren’t too many little small pieces left over so most of the time it is pretty tight on what’s in the bag is what you’re going to be using.

So if you do happen to drop something on the floor it goes missing you do probably want to find it because there aren’t too many excess pieces. When you consider it there’s over 2 000 pieces in this set, this was the leftover sticker sheet some of these are extras in terms of these ones.

Here the pieces which they wanted these to go on to were the curtains in the downstairs but when I tried to do it, these are actually an eighth length whereas the pieces are in their six length. And then I didn’t realize to the end they did actually provide the six length versions so the shorter versions. And then I’m guessing with their QR code you can go through and find the differences in the instructions the stickers themselves.

Stickers

As per the instructions are these two step sort of ones we you lift it off with this extra bit of seal on it and then you put it onto the brick, and you take that plastic film, and then peel it off. So if you’re not used to that, they can be a little bit quirky and why, particularly when it comes to putting all the wood texture inside the roof panels, you do start to get a little bit crazy with that when you’re doing them so often and having to do sort of two peeling steps.

Instructions

The instructions though in general were pretty tight pretty easy to follow. The usual sort of thing you just have to be a little bit patient with the tweezers and some of the wires. I don’t think there is too many mistakes in there which I came across. If there was one slide Improvement, I would suggest is for a couple of these lights particularly the fire ones is if they’re flickering and flaming. At the moment, that’s such a changing color because of my finger going in and the camera adjusting to the focus. But they really are a good number of lights here and again it’s just little my nitpicks at this stage.

Summing Up

Over all it’s a great value set with lots of lights and features if you’re looking for an addition to your City forest you can’t go wrong with this.

Thanks very much for watching and if you leave the word “cabin” in the comments, we’ll know you’ve watched this far. If you’ve enjoyed this video hit that thumbs up button and consider subscribing to the channel and a share never goes astray.

Here is the other fun hole wood cabin review. Here are some other lighting videos you might be interested in. Alternatively here is another video that might be of interest. That’s it from us here at Family Bricks thanks for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.

Jun 07

Light Kit LEGO UCS X-Wing Unboxing, Installation & Review Star Wars 75355. Lightailing LED

Let there be light!

In this video we are going to look at adding this Lightailing LED Lighting Kit into this UCS LEGO Star Wars X-Wing Starfighter set 75355.

We will unbox the light kit and see what is included in it. We will have a quick look at the features of the light kit once installed. From there we will have a timelapse speed build of installing the light kit and some of the issues we ran into. We will talk about manipulating the LEGO model in general and some tips around this. We’ll look at the back of the model and how visible the wires are before finally concluding with our thoughts on this light kit. The light kit has been provided by the manufacturer but opinions expressed are our own. You’ll find a link around the video to where this can be purchased from.

Affiliate Link to LIGHTAILING LED Lighting Kit for LEGO 75355 X-Wing Starfighter
https://amzn.to/43O8aj9

Time codes to the Video:

0:00 Introduction
1:13 Lighttailing Unboxing
2:00 Instructions Overview
3:33 Lights included Overview
5:04 Lights in Actions & Overview
5:53 Time-lapse Speedbuild & Commentary
6:33 Long vs Short Wires
8:53 Time-lapse Speedbuild & Commentary
9:15 How to Hold the Model
12:16 Back of the Model & Wires
12:55 Overall Thoughts

Transcript from the Show

Let there be light!

G’day Everyone, Matt Elder of Family Bricks here and today we are going to look at adding this Lightailing LED Lighting Kit into this UCS LEGO Star Wars X-Wing starfighter set 75355.

We will unbox the light kit and see what is included in it. We will have a quick look at the features of the light kit once installed. From there we will have a timelapse speed build of installing the light kit and some of the issues we ran into. We will talk about manipulating the LEGO model in general and some tips around this. We’ll look at the back of the model and how visible the wires are before finally concluding with our thoughts on this light kit. The light kit has been provided by the manufacturer but opinions expressed are our own. You’ll find a link around the video to where this can be purchased from.

Please like the video subscribe to the channel and hit the Bell to be notified when we upload videos it greatly helps the channel out.

This video is brought to you by mccatson

This video is bought to you bay Macatsim Holiday Homes in Margate and Broadstairs. Great for a week’s holiday or a weekend escape, being just over an hour east of London, UK. Treat yourself to amazing sunsets, a LEGO wall or great food. Visit www.macatsim.com and mention this Youtube video, we’ll will look after you.

Lightailing Unboxing

To be you know pretty sort of standard type box literally just a little sticker on there to show that it’s this one so we must be reusing this and using for other sets which I guess if it keeps down costs and everything like that that’s good. Um otherwise let’s crack this open and see what’s in here

[Music]

So this was everything that was in the box and a little surprise because normally with like kids you’ve got like lots of little individual bags for Lots but I’m guessing maybe they’re all wired off a single source and so all togetherit’d be interesting to see with that battery box and the instructions and one thing I don’t like when they do instructions in these boxes which are bigger than the boxes is it leaves it with a little bit of a curl. Not the end of the world but just means you’ve got to flatten it down otherwise it’s really just more annoying to deal with

Instructions Overview

Within the instruction packet you had the actual instructions it looks like a another bit of information

and a general sort of sticker slash service card thanking you for your purchase having a quick flick through the instructions sort of see how they’re doing theirs is going through it does look like giving you sort of photos on the key parts to take apart and pull apart to insert the actual lights and how the

wires are going. So give a bit of an overview here having a look doesn’t seem to be anything too

difficult but I guess the nature of the model is such that a lot of what you’re going to be doing is doing four times given the fact that it is an X-Wing with four parts to it. The instructions themselves

yeah nice glossy seem to be good quality photographs and everything like that and has a really good feel in your hand so it’s not flimsy cheap lightweight sort of stuff and they always use other ones you can buy from us. Another small booklet with universal instructions in several different languages basically just showing in generic terms how to deal with different cables and what they feel is the right way in the wrong way and connecting and often to the other languages.

Lights Included Overview

Seeing this as a single packet might as well just have a little bit of a look and see what we get out of this.

[Music]

So it certainly looks like they’re all done into groupings probably all coming back to the central USB connector there a few little modified bricks with electronic circuits in them that looks like here one by one round circles somepoles but then these looks like full length bar lightsaber type and that’s standard. We’ve got some holes in it a little light if you can see that it’s only appears you got something in there those little bubbles within the actual bar itself curious as to how that’s going to work

So your battery box is pretty standard you know studs, anti-studs either side. Three Double A’s with

USB connection and an on off switch so nice thing with them being all together like this is a single light is before you get too far and just pop it in there and test and see what it’s going to be like and just make sure that everything seems to be there so it’s like four purple lights there a couple red ones a few other bits and pieces all look good so that’s a good start knowing that at least what you’ve got is actually working and you’re not building the whole thing and then finding out that something’s wrong.

Lights Included Overview

Let there be light!

Oh that is pretty cool so just checking some of this out you’ve obviously got the lights from the cockpit coming through which is really nice then underneath here you’ve got this light coming down to highlight and illuminate the plaque and also to the Luke Skywalker Minifigure. Of course then too you also have the main guns with these custom sort of red lightsaber blades which really make it look excellent and then from behind you can see getting a lot of the purple from the engine.

And this is the reverse view so you can see all the purple here coming from those little engine nodes and then again the canopy cockpit weapons and a bit of the blue going forward from the plaque illumination

Time-lapse Speedbuild & Commentary

We’ll go through a quick time lapse here and most of it’s the same you’re putting lights in the rear engine and then a light on the gun and it’s mostly done the same way you pull them off you take off part of the rounder engine component and then slider along the front of the wing and then down along the thin axle to the front of the gun. It is quite challenging getting it along and I also find taking off that little red 4×4 piece helps.

And then in the bottom here we’re going to put some of the lights into the actual cockpit and that got a bit tricky and you’re having to sort of take off the side and it just didn’t go back nicely in theory you can attach it without needing to take that side off but there’s just the connection points are not strong enough to actually do that.

Issue – Long vs Short Wires

Okay I just wanted to quickly stop it here and say up to this point here it looks like I’ve made a mistake. I’ve done the first lights into here and then for the second one you’re meant to flip it upside down and do the one underneath but I’ve actually gone and done the one on the other side and we’ll have to see if that’s going to come back and bite me.

The other challenge with this is the instruction book comes up and says there’s some short versions of these and then some long versions of these the lights depending upon which part of the wing you’re looking at the challenge with that however is that these from what I can see here have no discernible differences like how do you know if it’s a long or a short and particularly when you had the other two all together so.

There was four of these there’s no way to see well what’s short and what’s long like if there was somewhere that there was a color on there or marking or something that would be really useful so we still have yet to see whether that’s going to come back to bite but that that was something which was quite annoying.

So with the two lines I did have left I’ve managed to unroll them out and being able to see the difference here and there is a long this one here is a long one and this one here is a short one you can kind of see it seems to be the length of the cable out to the actual main engine light as such and the difference appears to be roughly you know about 10 centimeters or four inches because once you get past that the

lengths, to the other little tiny ones which is going to have the lightsaber blades seem to be exactly the same length give or take. So what this means with what I’ve done already is either by pure fluke I’ve managed to get this short one on the short and the long one on the long position or if they are around the wrong way it doesn’t seem to have made any noticeable difference now if it hasn’t made any noticeable difference why they would worry about this I’m not 100 sure but it does feel like if they’re going to make the difference between a long wire and a short wire make it obvious because otherwise you’d be untangling all four of them all at once before you’ve got them anywhere in there and that just seems like a recipe for disaster in terms of wires going in the wrong places or just increasing the general frustration of trying to put these lights in even more.

Time-lapse Speedbuild & Commentary Continue

So we’ll finish off the light installation and the bottom two wings are pretty much the same as the first two. The main thing though is you see you’ve got a pair of tweezers which I’m always using which were not included they’re very very helpful for doing this and highly recommend having a pair. To clean up the wires I use the black twist ties that were included in the set that would have otherwise been thrown out and just helps to keep it tidy.

One useful thing I have discovered to manipulate it is when you’re grabbing onto it you need to be grabbing onto it in the very top or the very bottom parts and if it’s upside down like that’s the best way to manipulate it is actually with one hand grab onto the top and bottom here and then the other hand you actually want to roll it over so that when you pick it up and turn it you can flick your wrist grabbing onto that part there so you can then lift it and flip it straight over we’ll mount it straight on its stand.

How to Hold the Model

Like that I have found the way that you handle this really makes a difference I found there’s a couple of places if you grab onto it it’s fine any other places and you’re gonna start having all the different panels pop off if you grab onto this or that or these top ones or the bottom ones here invariably anything will just pop off also too.

If you’re trying to grab onto the engines invariably your fingers bump in and knock these tiles out it’s a place I found really useful for grabbing onto it is the cockpit glass and then the white plate on the underside of the cockpit. So you can grab one finger on top one on the bottom and then at the back of the plane it’s on the top and also on the bottom again if you’re slightly off you’re going to be touching these panels and they fall off really easily and there’s been a significant part of when putting these lights in during the process going back and having to reattach all these little panels and angles and it’s just the nature of this model and trying to put lights in that can get quite frustrating because you’re trying to wrap the wire around or something or flip it over or move it and then something just breaks off and then all of a sudden these panels because of the angles they’re not easy to get back on.

The easiest way I’ve found is to take the hinge joints apart put one in the main core of the model the other way back onto the outside panel and then try to reattach it as per the instructions because of the angles. If you’re just trying to attach it with the hinges completely joined it was really difficult to get enough pressure because again you’re going to be touching onto other parts of the model and that happened a lot you’re trying to reattach one part and you’re grabbing it the wrong way and then the other panels start falling off.

So you put this four by one light bar on underneath here which unfortunately then means you’ve got to drop down this piece here on the actual stand which means the back piece is supporting all the weight and if you do move that that pops off quite a lot I get the effect they’re going for I just think it’s too much of a compromise.

Ideally I think this bar here should be like in the cockpit where you have two one by twos on either side of this gray piece and then that can have the light coming down because if this pops off then the whole thing drops down and then all of a sudden your whole display model has dropped down a couple of brick heights because there is a fair bit of weight being supported just solely through that little plate there.

You can see the weight of it has popped this off the back piece there and it’s not sitting on the one in front so it’s actually just sitting on itself sometimes if you get your hands in the wrong place the pieces which will snap off you won’t be 100% sure of where they go back so it might be a good idea just to have some set of instructions handy in case you need to refer to them around.

Back of the Model & Wires

The back here in relative terms is pretty clean okay yes you can see some of the wires here coming in different places but considering it is the back of the model you’re generally not going to be seeing it much. And the nice thing about it too is you’ve been able to mount the battery box here on the anti-studs so it will stay in place there and that then also helps push a lot more of the other dangly wires forward into there.

And because you’ve got the display plug on the other side you can’t really see it and if you want to take it off the standard relatively easy to do you pretty much you know just detach the battery pack that you got here you can detach the USB if you really want to connection and then with that you can just lift it straight up and it’ll come straight off.

Overall Thoughts

Overall my thoughts on this is that the light kit is fantastic like it really adds so much to it the colors that they’ve used here in terms of getting the the Cool Blues underneath here offset with the warms and the purples just looks fantastic and for this effect that timer recording this is about £37 or about $42 American dollars.

Now given the X-Wing itself is over 200 in relative terms it’s not too bad sometimes if you have a set which is 50 pounds in the line Kit’s 40 pounds it’s sort of like almost one to one which does seem a little bit silly at times.

I think I’ve discussed previously a few little nitpicks here and there around the edges I think if you’re going to do this you need to allow about two to three hours to go through and I did it over a couple of sessions and mostly a lot of that time is just because when you’re touching the various parts the actual base Lego model itself the panels can come off really easily and that’s just inherent in the design of it by the Lego and not so much anything to do with the actual lighting tail light kit.

The wires are mostly hidden and I like the fact that for the most part they are white so it does blend in a couple of places where it won’t is where it hits the Grays on some of these cannons here but in the dark can you really tell the difference I really do like the fact that they’ve gone to this extra effort here just to try to get something down onto the plaque so that doesn’t become a complete dead area and enables them to really get this contrast between the cools and the warms of the rest of the lights that they’ve used.

So definitely if you’re into lighting up your models and particularly something like a UCS one like this it’s definitely something worthwhile considering even the back is done quite nicely so you can have it displayed in different angles and you’re still going to get a nice effect.

I just can’t remember too well from The Source material that if there was some little flashing lights on some of the wings that could have been a nice addition but again that’s sort of nitpicking around the edges.

Thanks very much for watching and if you leave the word “light” in the comments we’ll know you’ve watched this far.

If you’ve enjoyed this video hit that thumbs up button and consider subscribing to the channel and a share never goes astray.

Here are some other lighting videos you might be interested in. Alternatively here are some other videos you might also like to watch. That’s it from us here at Family Bricks, thanks for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.

Apr 05

Which is Better Value?! LEGO PAB Cups Jugs vs Cardboard Boxes Pick a Brick Build

In this video we are going to compare the old Pab Jugs / cups to the new LEGO cardboard boxes from the Pick and Build walls (aka Pick a brick) – which is better value. Is this a case of shrinkflation by LEGO where they are reducing the size of what it is but still keeping it at the same price.

In the UK, these are £14.99 each. One was recently filled up at Lester Square city store in London. The other was done at the Bluewater LEGO store which is east of London (which seems to be one of the trialing places for these boxes, along with a store in Berlin).

We will be doing this with a 4×4 plate element as this would help getting us better sizes in the box and seeing which is better value. Is this a good move by LEGO or a step backwards?

2×4 Brick Optimisation in PaB Cups Link (Brick Fest Live – Your Creative Friends) https://youtu.be/fED5J10hT10

Transcript from the Show

G’day everyone, Matt Elder from Familybricks here and in this video we’re going to compare the old Pub jugs to the new Lego cardboard boxes for your pick and build walls and see which is better value is this the case of shrinkflation by Lego where they’re reducing the size of what it is but still keeping these at the same price in the UK these are 14.99 pounds each and this was recently filled up at Leicester Square store in London and this one is done out of blue water which is in east of London and they seem to be one of the traveling places for these boxes along with a store in Berlin

Now we’re going to be doing that looking at a 4×4 plate element as it’ll help us just getting better sizes in there and see which is better value and is this a good move or a step backwards.

This video is brought to you by mccatson Holiday Homes in Margate and broadstairs great for a week’s holiday or a weekend Escape being just over an hour east of London UK treat yourself to amazing sunsets a Lego wall or great food visit www.macatsim.com and mention this YouTube video and we’ll look after you.

So it’s in at the Lego store in London Leicester Square which is the now the biggest Lego store in the world again and went through and packed one of these pad cups filled with these pieces now the reason for this is getting these in large quantities in the UK is virtually impossible if you want 10 to 20 and get it off Bricklink no worries anything over that you have to go through multiple cells and even then they don’t have them and then if you go off to Germany or the continent in Europe the postage gets so expensive though it starts to become an economical so I wanted these anyhow.

So this has been done with an optimal configuration which is based upon using two by four bricks but I’ve just changed it slightly for my purposes so there’s a link around the video to somebody else who did this about 11 years ago. So you have that in the top first layer, second layer, third layer, fourth layer assistant and I’ve got some loose pieces in the bottom just one more unflow pieces now did the same on this other cup here.

Sure I could have probably pushed putting more of the smaller pieces in between and things like that but I thought even just doing that much and having that taped down was really pushing it so I didn’t want to push it too much further so we can go through and do a count of these and see how many of these 4×4 plate pieces that we got and then just because the numbers the black pieces are actually two by four bricks just because when you’ve got odd numbers in terms of the bricks you can put across you needed the black ones and my son wanted them for a building project at school.

So I was in a Bluewater Lego Store this evening which is east of London in the UK and they seem to be one of the few stores which are doing the trials on the new boxes so I’ve loaded them up here again I’ve probably pushed the sizing on a little bit but you can sort of see really close relatively firmly and snuggly and they’re also going to be doing the thing where you can reuse them and Gap in the UK 75p off and to do that they then stamp it with this.

It’s relatively easy to fold it together and I haven’t undone this so I’ll just go through it and do that now and this is what we see we’re going to go inside so I’ve packed these 18 plates high so if there’s 17 plates they’re comfortable at 18 they start to bend over the packaging there at the back it’s about 23 studs this way and then about 11 studs this way. I’ve pushed these a little bit so in terms of getting four by fours in maybe another packet like that and then in the corner I’ve been able to slide in a plate a two by four brick another two by four brick and a plate and then in this case two they’re also how far deep it is I’ve been able to get two stacks of these sitting on top of each other.

So I think you know that’s pretty tight there’s not much more space in there and even there’s some sort of pushing because it is bulging a little bit so through the magic of editing let’s find out how much is in each and how they compare.

So for a pub jug stacked in this order this is the breakdown of each of these little sections here so in this section here you have 33 plates two bricks next one 36 plates four bricks next one 42 plates four bricks next one 51 plates four bricks next one 51 plates five bricks and then three plates on the end that then gives you a total of 216 4×4 plates 20 4×2 bricks and then this enabled you to have a lot of small pieces you could do a lot more than this depends upon how much you want to push it and whether or not the store will let you get away with it.

For the new boxes, if you do them in Stacks like this you’re going to have in that stack there is 18 then 18 18 18 18 and this here is then seven on the top plus seven underneath same thing again 18 18 18 18 7 plus 7. These ones here and then stacks of nine with another stack underneath so you have nine and nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine nine then in this corner little piece here you have four lots of two by four plates in the white and then four two by four bricks there taking that all together that gives you a ground total of 298 4×4 bricks four four by two bricks and then four two by four plates.

So overall in the Old Pad cups you get 216 4x4s versus 298 so you get an extra 82 in this okay you are getting slightly more 2×4 bricks and then it’s going to come down to how many small pieces you are comfortable with and can get away with stacking in the store.

Of course none of this is taking into consideration the actual time to go through and do this and it’s actually quite surprising this to stack like that took me about 10 minutes this the stack like that took about 20 because with this you’re just clicking the bricks together and counting up the stacks with this you’ve got to be aware of how many you’re stacking in each row and things like that just from actually putting all these together this was so much more enjoyable because while I was doing this I was actually having a chat to the staff member.

While I was doing this I was just focusing on making sure that I was getting the right number of plate stacks on each line surprisingly I think the new boxes are actually far better value than the original cups initially when I first heard of them moving onto the boxes I was quite cynical about it going this is going to be one of those shrinkflation sort of things but there’s always make much more sense to have square packaging rather than the rounds because it’s literally a matter of trying to pick a square peg into a round hole.

You know just in general this is a much better experience it’s not as time consuming and it makes a lot more sense.

The only thing I would have liked to have seen is for these boxes to be more in line with the numbering system which works with Lego because along this side it’s like 23 studs along this side it’s 11 studs and the height is 17 plates you know had they made that 24 studs had they made that 12 and okay that height there might be 18. it’s just going to make so much more sense in terms of being able to stack and pack them as then they’re in nice multiples of fours or sixes or twos yeah the dimensions that they have are basically three prime numbers 17 11 and 23.

Maybe that is intentional and it’s only the crazy people who go through and do things like this the thing that will be interesting in the future is just seeing how far you can push this I don’t feel I’ve pushed this a huge amount I mean I certainly feel that has been pushed to the absolute maximum and when I took that up to the counter I was almost prepared for them to say no.

In which case you’d lose about 51 plates and five bricks out of that to get that to close properly and this one you know if you’re skimming off the top and things like that you’ll probably lose on maybe plates just because of the way that some of these are stacked is there a more optimal stacking configuration from this than possibly could be I don’t think you get too much more happy to be proven wrong

However and from a storage point of view I think having these and having them stacked on top of one another is going to be more space and user friendly the only downside is is that if you have the lid closed on that yeah what’s in there where as opposed to this what’s in there these you can obviously say straight through what are your thoughts on the new boxes have you been able to come up with any optimal stacking configurations.

On your way out hit that Thumbs Up Button a subscribe and a share never goes astray thanks for watching this far and if you leave the word boxes in the comment we’ll know you’ve watched the whole thing if you’re looking for some Lego Storage Solutions check out this video if you want to see how our custom Lego Sonic the Hedgehog mock Compares with the official set check out this video alternatively if you’ve ever wondered why Lego monorail is so epic check out this video otherwise this might be of interest that’s it from us here at familybricks and we’ll see you in the next video.

Jan 28

Is the Sonic the Hedgehog Lego Expansion Set Worth the Hype? An In-Depth Review and Comparison – 21331

Is this fan made LEGO Sonic the Hedgehog Green Hill Zone alternative/expansion MoC any good?! In this video we are going to look at an alternative build to the official release of Sonic the Hedgehog LEGO Ideas set 21331. Is this any good as an expansion module to add to the official set? We will look at the individual modules, compare Dr Robotniks/Eggman’s and a couple of suggested layouts. We will also highlight a few errors we found in the instructions showing you how to build everything.

PDF Instructions for this expansion are available for free from rebrickable.com and are by the original fan designer of the set – Viv Grannell, also known as toastergrl online. This is a smart move by the fan designer as it encourages you to buy another set, or 2, like what I’ve done here. https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-99580/toastergrl/21331-modules-badniks-expansion-pack/#details

If you want to find out more details about my custom Sonic the Hedgehog level MoC, check out our video card above or details on my website mattelder.com/sonic for Free instructions.

Transcript from the show

G’day everyone! Matt Elder family bricks here and today we’re going to look at this alternative build to the official release of Sonic the Hedgehog Lego ideas set 21331. Is this any good as an expansion module to the official set? We’ll look at the individual models, compare the Dr Robotnik/Eggman’s and a couple of suggested layouts. We also highlight a few errors we found in the instructions showing you how to build everything.

PDF instructions for this expansion are available for free from rebrickable.com and are by the original fan designer of this set, Viv Grenell, also known as Toaster Girl online. This is a smart move by the fan designer as it encourages you to buy another set or two like what we’ve done here.

This video is brought to you by Macatsim Holiday Homes in Margate and Broadstairs. Great for a week’s holiday or a weekend Escape being just over an hour east of London UK. Treat yourself to amazing sunsets, a Lego wall or great food. Visit www.macatsim.com and mention this YouTube video and we’ll look after you.

So you we have the official set with the Robotnik on one side and then this is the rebuild extension set so you can see this is using all the pieces and this wall does quite well with what it’s got. It does feel that there’s less volume and bulk of stuff there. So we’ll look at some of the individual components starting off with the larger one which is going to be this sort of section here with two lamps, a palm tree there with a TV on the top and a little hint of spring there some little recessed parts there and then the spinning around to the back very similar sort of thing. A little unfortunate that that blue sticks out but when you put some plates along it you won’t see it.

A couple of smaller little platforms just to be able to bulk things out and you’ve got there with the little plant. Same sort of build as the original set and then split levels here with another TV and then over here you’ve got this corner piece. Then you have some of these guns here used to the spikes just done quite well here. We have one of the enemies which is really cool the way that they’ve utilized these see-through parts for wings using the same includes speakers for the face. Another enemy made up and looks pretty cool nice little Sharpie spiky and a Dr Robotnik or Eggman depending upon your market.

And parts of this are the same as the one in the set but then other parts are different. It does feel a little bit on the fragile side and certainly before you put the hands on it sort of doesn’t stand properly and has a tendency to fall backwards but good to see it trying. And the weapon is only just in there, it’s very easy to have that pop out.

So now there’s just different ways that you configure these and put them together. So now we’re going to combine the sets and you start off by taking the black pieces off the side of the official set, broken them up into the modules and now starting to reconfigure them all together here and they slide together pretty easily with the use of Technic pins and axles.

“So here is the module layout. One option is a mix and match of the extension set plus the actual original base Sonic set. You can sort of see that the first two bits are an extension of some of the original and come around using this corner piece to come back down into sort of more the original set with the loop there and a Robotnik. It gives a nice bit of variation and being in a corner module like that, you then have some flexibility if you don’t have long straight runs or you need to get it to wrap around or even if you want to extend it even further.

I can certainly appreciate wrapping around because this is my other custom Moc one which is much bigger and trying to find a space to have all the different parts you need, sometimes you just have to have a bit of flexibility. If you want to find out more details about my custom Sonic the Hedgehog level Moc, check out our video card above or details on my website matilda.com/Sonic for free instructions.

Now we’re going to take this apart and reconfigure it so it’s all in one flat straight line. So, you put the modules in with the pins again and then add the black side tiles in that we’ve got from before on both sides. This is module layout suggestion number two and it’s obviously just all in a straight line. Again, it’s mixing in the original set with also the alternate build that they got here and it gives just a nice little panoramic visual going across the whole length. So as you move along, you can see all the various little elements and it just expands it and gives it that more full sort of feeling.

Obviously, when you just got the base set to deal with, there’s only so much you can do at a certain price point but certainly, you know, adding in some more, you get a nice bit of variation within it. The nice thing is that the original fan designer has gone through and you can sort of see over on this side is the fan design palm tree and over here is the actual official one. So they’re trying to keep the language of it the same so it all fits together and it’s not too jarring and I think they’ve done a really good job at that.

If you look closely at some of the pieces, you’ll notice that here being the set it’s got two high but some of the places over here it’s three but that’s just because they’ve had to work within the piece that have been available in the set. So if you’re looking for those very particular details, you’ll be able to pick them up as being slightly different and it’s interesting to see this take on Eggman.

Because obviously, this is the main set and then this is the brick build. They’ve never redone the head certainly there’s a bit of criticism around the way that that was done. So at least you got another alternative. So at the end of the day, would I recommend going out and getting a second set to be able to do this?”

I think it’s gonna be if you’re a really hardcore sort of fan or you like the additional expansion to really give it that Fuller sort of volume and build out you will have a lot of extra pieces left over and it might just be waiting until some more extension sets come out later on in 2023 which are rumored but certainly if you’re able to pick this up at a discount which they do do occasionally it might be worthwhile doing once you finish the main build.

This gives you an idea as to the number of pieces that are left. It feels like there’s about half. Some of those black ones will get used when you put it all together. Only downside with trying to build this set is you do have so many pieces so it’s probably worthwhile trying to null it out if you want to do it quickly. It’s been a while since I built the original set and now I remember I’ve forgotten just how tedious it can be putting together some of these one by one plates.

So you get the two High plates throughout the whole thing like you know 10 of these eight of those one step one slide issue at step 48 there’s meant to be three of these pieces but in the set I’ve only come across two so far. I’m going to pull the next one out of my own collection but enough to see I’ve started to sort through some of the colors to try to figure out if I am just have it buried under something or if it’s actually missing. And at step 93 we seem to be short of one of these one by two reddish brown tiles so I have to go into the Personal Collection and grab one.

Thanks very much for watching and if you leave the word end in the comments we’ll know you’ve watched this far. If you’ve enjoyed this video hit that thumbs up button and consider subscribing to the channel. A share also never goes astray. If you’d like to check out our fan Moc versus the official set, click the video here. If you’d like to see a review of the chemical plant zone expansion Moc, check this video. Alternatively, you might like these videos with more details on our fan Moc and how to build it. That’s it from us here at familybricks. Thanks for watching and we’ll see you in the next video.

Nov 20

Wedding Painting – Couple at Church Archway

Wedding Painting Portrait – Couple in an Archway

How special is the church entrance when getting married? Here is a recent Wedding Painting that I did live and some media around it.

Wedding Painting bookings can be made by getting in contact: matt@mattelder.com

Acrylic Painting on Canvas Board
18×24 inches (45x60cm)

#livepainting #weddingpainting #weddingdayready #weddingdaydetails #weddinginspirations #bridesmaidideas #weddingplanningtips  #liveweddingpainter #mattelder #fineartwedding #weddingart #weddingportrait #weddingportraits #couplesportraits #bridalportraits #londonwedding #londonweddingplanner #weddingplannerlondon #weddingillustration #liveweddingart #liveweddingartist #weddingpainter #giftideas #weddinggift #anniversarygift #weddingideas #luxuryevents #wedding #timelapse #acrylic

Nov 14

Medieval Weapon Kit 3 in 1 Catapult/Bombard/Ballistic Unboxing/Review: JMBricklayer Lego Compatible

In this video we are going to review JMBricklayer 30001 3 In 1 Medieval Weapon Kit. This consists of the Catapult, Ballista and Bombard. We will start with an unboxing of the set and then look at the features of the 3 builds, and any other items of note. Following this we will then review the set overall in terms of Build Experience, Value for Money, Displayability, and Playability, and finishing off with an overall score for this set.

This was provided to us by the manufacturer but the opinions and review scores will be our own. There may also be an affiliate link around the video for which we may receive something (which helps the channel continue to make videos such as these). So let’s get into it.

JMBricklayer Website

https://www.jmbricklayer.com/?wpam_id=15

Order Medieval Weapon Kit 3 in 1 Catapult/Bombard/Ballistic from: https://www.jmbricklayer.com/product/3-in-1-medieval-weapon-30001/?wpam_id=15

Time codes to the Video:

0:00 Introduction
0:39 Unboxing
1:53 Instructions Overview
2:45 Catapult
5:42 Target
6:25 Ballista
8:41 Bombard
12:28 Bombard Design
17:41 Bombard Instructions
20:26 How to Loop Elastic
21:10 Overview Review Scores
22:59 Summing Up

Transcript from the Show

G’day everyone Matt Elder of family bricks  here and in this video we’re going to  review the JM bricklayer 3001  three-in-one medieval weapon kit this  consists of a catapult  blister and a bombard  we will start with an unboxing of the  set and then look at the features of the  three builds and any other items of note  following this we will then review the  set overall in terms of build experience  value for money displayability  playability and then finishing off with  an overall score for this set this was  provided to us by the manufacturer but  the opinions and review scores will be  our own there may also be an affiliate  link around the video for which we may  receive something which helps the  channel to keep making videos such as  these so let’s get into it.

Unboxing

So this is  how it arrives to me I have an outer  mailer and then the actual  box inside bubble wrapped so I’ll just  crack this open  here it is I’m packaging here it looks  like it’s got some of the parts of it  are shiny and then just the black  background and it’s the remarkable  ancient machines thirty thousand one 568  pieces three in one so you can see the  three different ones there having a look  over on the back back is just  straight up and down details uh a few  little other bits and pieces there again  the three different models on the side  and your general details and one of them  on the other side there looks like it’s  got a little Target as well so overall a  relatively nice presentation I would  shame the boxes a little banged up let’s  open it up and see what’s inside.

Box Contents

So with everything laid out you have the  box there and then we have the seven  numbered bags instruction book four  wheels and the additional bag with the  rubber bands and elastics so having a  look at the instruction book  it’s got a nice weight to it nice glossy  finish  it looks like it just uh general  information  and then straight into the building  looks like some pretty standard  instructions what’s that  showing you how to fire that one and  then I guess this is then the start of  the next one so it’s interesting 116 and  117 starts the next build  and 230 from looks at you build the last  one  build the target  on the back so it all looks nice clear  concise and no sort of Frills with it. 

Catapult

Here we have the Catapult design which  is really cool and it’s pretty solid and  chunky each of these main three pillars  here you got the two on the angle and  the one there all solid really  supporting the structure and the  mechanism you’ve got the spiky Wheels  which you can imagine during the day if  that’s rolling along and you’re here  it’s going to slice you up on the front  you’ve got another sort of aggressive  spiky design as well and this is common  dual three models so if you are building  between them just take that piece off  and don’t take it completely apart  because you can use it on the other one.

Color Scheme

The color scheme is this sort of earthy  retro sort of style so you have these  types of sand blues for the metallics  and then you’ve got sort of the the  Browns and the greens and the  desaturated oranges for more sort of  like woods and then your elastics and  rubber bands are generally in the black here.

Elastics / Rubber Bands

Speaking of elastics we’ll just  come over here I’ll show you the mechanism in a moment you’ve got the  main one is here which is really really  taut and stretched so the only thing I’d  be a little concerned with is the  longevity of the rubber bands if you  leave this sitting on a shelf for a long  time I know with other ones I’ve had  they can break down or really stretch in  that and in this case here this one is  actually you don’t have to take half of  this apart to have it like lying loose  so as at least the ones in the back here  controlling that sort of mechanism you  can just roll them straight off and they  wouldn’t be too much of a problem to  keep in a relatively loose state so you  don’t lose stretchiness over time. I’ve  got this on a pretty frictionless type  surface so it does move pretty well easily.

Firing Mechanism

So let’s have a look at the main  functioning mechanism you’ve got the arm  here which is going to go up and down  you can sort of see that rubber band in  there moving about as you do that  and then in the back you have these sort  of go up and down and that’s going to be  your catch mechanism for it being ready  to fire so we’ll just try to get this  down in here that drops down try to lift  both sides make sure it catches there  so it’s there ready to be fired let’s  move it over and then to fire it just  press down  and off it goes now to go find that  thing.

Projectile

Found that thing down behind the  radiator which was fun and it’s actually  a crisscross of these rubber pieces  probably a good thing it’s rubber  because when the Catapult fires it’s got  a fair bit of kick to it so if that was  solid and that kept on hitting anything  I could imagine that that’s going to  make a mess of things or at least this  is somewhat a little bit safer and this  is the leftover pieces for the set which  feels to be about another third again so  it feels like they haven’t really  compromised the model and just made sure  that they’ve had the appropriate number  of pieces and types for each model to  get it to work.

Target

This is a cool little  Target simple straightforward build but  just adds a little bit of extra  Dimension to it so if you were getting  good at these things you could go  through and try to hit it and practice  doing that and this is the brick  separator which comes with the model  which is kind of interesting a little  bit different and not really sure what  this for but it’s got a little bit of  flex and opens and closes so imagine  just to grab onto something  the only downside is doesn’t really have  anything if you’re trying to get Studs  off studs so if you’re trying to get  these off  nothing really sits in there not like  one of these ones where you just put it  on and get it off there.

Ballistic / Ballista

Here is the ballistic or what you  might think of as a giant crossbow on  Wheels and the bass structure similar  sort of design to the others so again  you’ve sort of got the wheels with the  blades some nasty little spikes and  blades at the front there and then the  main differences up here although this  base is built in a different way too the  overall top superstructure mechanism is  relatively straightforward just a couple  of rubber bands elastic bands in there  you’re able to slide that main part back  which we’ll walk in here when that flips  up like that  and then just pushing down here is the  release mechanism  and the firing works pretty consistent  and it’s pretty good your missile as  such is just a Long Rod with a cone type  piece on the end and that just slides  straight in and the firing mechanism is  pretty straightforward to be this PC  sliding along when that lifts up.

Building Quirk 

The only slight building Quirk I would  say is when you’re putting on these  elastic bands again they want you on  page 308 when you do the step to  basically thread it in and around  through the pile on there which there’s  just not enough clearance in there to  actually do it so I think again it’s one  of those things where it sounds like a  good idea to do it digitally but it’s  not until you actually do it so let’s  say back a couple of steps about 295-ish  when you’re doing this here you should  be threading that elastic band around  there so then when you put it in there  you can then get it I had built the  whole thing and then had to come back  and pull this apart that was just a pain. 

It’s not the end of the world but it’s  just more of a hassle to have to come  back and do that otherwise everything  else is pretty straightforward as you’d  expect and again this is just one of the  ones where you wrap it around and then  you pull this through and just connect  it straight onto it  and it’s pretty good to be able to hit  the target and it’s pretty consistent  and here are all the leftover pieces so  you probably use maybe about half but  given that that superstructure of  sitting on the wheelbase is quite simple  it’s not all that surprising. 

Bombard

Here we have the bombard which is a good  size and it’s nice and Big And Chunky  and it’s pretty solid the main mechanism  sits on there pretty tight  rolls relatively well this is a pretty  smooth frictionless surface all around  just some nice detailing the spikes  chains a little bit of gribbling on the  side and the earthy wooden type color  scheme of sort of you know the Browns  the oranges and the the greens work  quite well and they get sort of quite  believable as something which is  Medieval and this one’s firing mechanism  you come in here either side there’s a  piece in here you slide back  that piece here it moves up and down and  we’ll just clip into there and then from  the back here you have the release  mechanism which you push down  and it fires out.

Issue

Now this is probably  where this model starts having a few  little problems I’m assuming that I  built this correctly which I’m pretty  sure that I have this is quite rigid in  the way that it sits there the way that  you go about firing it however it does  seem to have some pretty  little quirks about it and things just  have to be just right on the back here  you’ve got a piece here which if it goes  down too far it almost seems like it  will catch when it goes to slide in  so try that again  like that so it hit there and it didn’t  allow it to slide all the way through  and when I’m firing this I’m holding it  in a very particular way.

Kids Struggling

When the kids  first saw this and they went to fire it  it took about eight or nine goes because  they could get it out and even then I  had to say here don’t hold it there up  hold it here sort of thing because a lot  of the sliding mechanisms there it seems  to have very tight tolerances and if  it’s not just spot on it won’t fire  properly so again if we just go through  you can sort of see as I lifted that up  that slid back in didn’t do that again  that locks down if you have that all the  way sort of down like that when it goes  to fire you’ll see that it’ll get caught  again  and then if I lift that piece up at the  back  it then slides the rest of the way in so  with that one there it seems to be there. 

You’ve got to have that kicked up a bit  but not too much because then it seems  like it’ll hit that part there so  probably about 135 degree angle  so you can sort of see that in there  try that  and again something got caught it almost  seems like when you push this down you  can’t push it down too much otherwise  when that slides in it will get hit and  caught again so let’s just try that  again  that might help if that goes all the way  back in  slightly up  still having an issue so I’m just going  to make sure this time too that when you  slide it in you put it in as the way the  instructions suggests so maybe there’s a  bit too much friction if you do it one  way as opposed to the other  of that push this mechanism all the way  back down to the catch make sure that’s  going all the way in that’s up a little  bit let’s push down. 

Partial Solution

I’m still having issues okay let’s give  this another try and what I’m going to  try to do this time is actually with my  fingers there be lifting up when I push  down just so that it gives just the  marginal bit of extra clearance for the  mechanism to slide in so push this down  here  I’ll lift this up a bit and then at the  same time push down on that  and that seems to fire out much better  so I think that’s where the design issue  might be with this again I’m pretty sure  that this is built correctly because 

Further Examination

When you put these pieces in here  there’s only certain ways for that to go  but I did notice and I’ll take the  wheels off to show this  these side pieces when they attach on  they seem to just slightly change the  angle so if I just detach these a little  bit  because there’s one on either side  so you can sort of see how all that is  sitting in there lift that up a little  bit okay so that should be more at rest  there  so these positions seem fixed these are  pretty solid in there now what I find is  if you just put these straight on  this little Edge bed here will catch  here  so if we just try to put that on there  the natural tendency is for that not to  be cleared like it’s just a fraction of  a millimeter  and then to put that on all the way  you kind of just got to lift it up ever  so subtly  and that really seems to lock that into  position so there’s no other ways  particularly when you put the other side  on as well again same sort of issue I  know it’s not 100 aligned because the  pins are not always in but that’s where  you can I assume get this in here  just in there.

When I first put that on, it made an indent into that piece  so that’s in there and that’s sort of  holding that whole piece in place  and firm and rigid and as I sort of  going through before just when this  mechanism slides in here there’s not a  great deal of clearance in this back  piece here  when that comes out  let’s get that to catch  so you just got what you’ve got on this  Square rectangular piece here there’s a  few studs I know it’s difficult to see  but this actually slides over the cross  of those studs and that’s going to be  providing friction which is going to be  slowing down this release mechanism  here’s that bit I was talking about  before  and that’s how it releases again it  could be encountering problems because I  just haven’t built this correctly but if  this is a way that it’s meant to be it  just seems like the tolerances are just  slightly off which really slows down  that mechanism and as I said you’ve got  to be you know lifting this up and  pushing that down at the same time so. 

Real vs Digital ?!

You can sort of see how these pieces  here are touching and even if you move  it around you can kind of always see  in there  there’s no sort of daylight or clearance  through to the back and even on the  other side  again the same sort of thing there  it’s it’s touching it but then if you  look at the instructions  or at least one of the pictures of it  you know this is generally the only  thing you can really see I don’t know  whether this is a digital render but you  can just see it looks like there’s a bit  of Gap in there so that makes me I  wonder if this is digital it’s very easy  to miss those tolerances or if I built  it wrong that might explain it so they  could be just a slight little issue  there and there’s no  all the real I suppose that’s the other  angle that you can see in there  and again it looks like you can see  through it so has me a little stumped

Rubber Bands / Elastics

The other thing from experience is that  these rubber bands or elastics here are  really really taut so I think if you’re  storing this  um you’d probably want to do it so that  those are just released like that  because certainly I’ve had on other  mocks that I’ve built elastics which  have been stretched for a long time and  you know after a couple months of course  when they’re taught the whole time  they’re going to lose their elasticity  and eventually they will just snap so I  mean that’s relatively easy to get on  and off there because certainly when I  built this it was late at night and then  I’m filming this in the next morning so  overnight I’d taken both of these off  because the last thing I’d want is for  them to sort of snap but you know that  might just be something to be aware of  the longevity of those if you leave them  in that place.

For the most part this is  pretty solid again I think the problems  you’ll find is when you’re trying to use  this mechanism here and you’re grabbing  onto it in weird places in particular  these front bits here if you just move  your fingers on them slightly they will  come off relatively easy but these are  just minor and then on this one here  the ones on the edge you’re only  attached by one stud so it’s just a  shame they probably couldn’t have  figured out a way to attach that there  but given that angle and things maybe it  wasn’t possible and of course with these  spikes sticking out you know too much  vigorous action and they’re going to pop  off but they’re locked in there pretty  tightly and when you’re putting these  rubber bands elastics on it’s not really  clear in the instructions how you sort  of do it so the way that I found is you  go through there once you bring it back  over and you pass one end through the  other and then that will give it that  tightness there and then once you’ve had  it sat on here for a while that then  really locks in there and also to notice  how I’ve got it on the upper side  because originally  I had it down on the undersign like that  and it was further down and again  because that’s lining mechanism is an  extra bit of friction and that won’t  slide back properly so you need to be  paying attention to that.

Instructions

The  instructions for this one are pretty  good for the most part but it does feel  like you are doing a lot of steps and  you’re being quite dense in them and  there are a few little quirky ones and  it’s not a hundred percent clear so you  can sort of see with this one here when  you’re putting the plates on it’s good  that it sort of points out where these  red ones are but you don’t ever get to  see it all together so you can’t really  double check because when you go on to  the next step  you’ve then put on two of these long  pieces here so you can’t see well  where’s it meant to line up and there’s  a few little ones like that throughout  this set of instructions so you are  taking your sort of best guess but a lot  of times depending upon where the pins  lie and just checking that your pins are  all right you can sort of do it by  process of elimination.

How to Loop Rubber Band?

The other quirky  little step I found is around 179 they  don’t actually show you how to Loop  these over which I’ll go through in a  separate one and show you but this can  be a real pain because it took me a  while to figure out how to actually get  this to work because it’s just like here  oh it goes in there but it’s not that  straightforward and simple so certainly  for your younger hands and things like  that you can see people going to run  into this and go well how do I deal with  this and there’s no sort of other place  in the instructions which show you how  to do these little loops and Knots which  I think is really really needed like I  understand when you’re building  instructions showing these flexible sort  of pieces and things has always been a  challenge but this being such a critical  part and step and if you can’t get this  it’s going to drive you a little bit  insane.

Awhile to Connect In

The other thing is when you  do this assembly it’s like 179 but then  these pieces don’t actually Connect into  anything for quite a number of steps so  they’re still floating there then you’re  going off  and building this whole other assembly  while these pieces are still just  floating so you know this whole other  assembly you’re joining the assembly  together  they’re still floating there still  floating there  it’s at step 202 that they actually then  go through and attach to something now  this might seem overtly critical but the  thing that I found when you put these  pins in through that elastic for the  first time they have a tendency to fall  out pretty quickly so you need to be  able to get them in there and make them  taut and everything so I think this is  one of the things where they’ve built it  and then probably just digital  instructions and then not really tested  it because for mine you’d almost be want  to be building this whole sub assembly  first before you put in that elastic on  step 179 but again that’s just something  which is really nuanced but something to  be aware of if you are building it so  when you finish the build for this these  are the leftover pieces so you can see  probably used on two thirds three  quarters of them this model does seem to  use a lot of the bits.

Rubber Band Tying Trick

now I just wanted  to go through and give you a quick  demonstration and show you how you get  this sort of knot here on step 179 so  I’ll have that just as the pin piece  there  you have your elastic what you do is you  grab one end of it and roll it over  so then you get these two Loops here  forming  and then you rotate the two Loops in on  themselves  so it comes over like that  have your PIN put it in the middle there  and then you just gradually pull  on this other end here  and that  is how you get that in there 

Overview Review Scoring

Now to give an overall review for the  set we’re looking at the JM bricklayer  30001 medieval three in one set released  in 2022 and it consists of the Catapult  bombard and the ballistic it has a price  of 39.99 us which is about 35 pounds and  about the same in Euros the set consists  of 568 pieces this comes in at about 6.2  P per piece or about 7 cents per piece  which anytime you’re getting these days  under 10 cents per piece on average  you’re doing quite well each of the  models will take about an hour hour and  a half to build the build experience we  go 75 because we took a few points off  for critical points in the instructions  either just not being there or really  not clear the builds are nice and  challenging but the instructions would  benefit from just having a final polish  to really smooth things out value for  money we gave 90 because for what you  get in the price you pay we find it to  be great value you are getting three  distinct models with three distinct  firing mechanisms the brick quality is  on par with any other major brand

Playability

For  playability we gave this 75 because it  is kind playable once you get beyond the  firing mechanism and rolling it around  it doesn’t really offer too much beyond  that

Displayability

For displayability we gave it a  solid 80 the models display quite well  and got some nice details in them but  nothing that really knocks your socks  off.

General Comments

The target market would appear to be  those who like these sort of medieval  type weaponry and Military fans it may  also appeal to those people who like the  beam and pin type Building Systems the  pros of the set is that it’s a great  value with three functioning models  which are completely different from one  another there are a variety of building  techniques which are used in it and it’s  generally a quality product the cons  would be that some of the instructions  are not clear in key steps there’s no  sort of little figures that come along  with them and it’s very much what you  see is what you get so in summary it’s a  great value three in one functioning set  if you’re into this sort of subject  matter and builds then you’re really  going to enjoy this so the overall score  comes in at a solid and respectable 80  percent

Summing Up

what are your thoughts is this  something you’d be interested in  purchasing let us know in the comments  below or just type the word “JM” and we’ll  know you’ve watched the complete video. If you’ve enjoyed don’t be afraid hit  that thumbs up button and it will be  super awesome and subscribe and share  link around the video to where this can  be purchased if you’d like to see how my  custom Sonic the Hedgehog mock Compares  with the official set check out this  video otherwise here are some other  videos you might be interested in thanks  very much for watching this family  bricks video and we’ll see you in the  next one 

Sep 20

LEGOised Darth Maul Star Wars Painting

Done as a prize for @Planet TEK 24 hour charity livestream raising money for “Children with Cancer UK”. Tek raised a staggering £3.7k – Congrats mate!

Acrylic Painting on Canvas Board 4×6 inches (10x15cm)

#varnishing #varnishingpaintings #varnishingday #varnishingrainbows #varnishingart #varnishingpainting #traditionaltechniques #legostarwars #starwars #starwarsfan #starwarsday #starwarsnerd #starwarslego #starwarsart #starwarstoys #starwarsfans #starwarsfigures #starwarsgeek #starwarsfanart #starwarscelebration #starwarscollection #starwarscollector #starwarsartist #fanart #legoise #legoize #legominifigure #legominifigs #legominifigures #legominifigure

Jul 01

Super Malio Peach’s Castle LEGO Compatible Mario Review Time Lapse Unboxing LQS 67601 Speedbuild MOC

In this video, we are going to have an extensive look over this Super Malio / Mario LEGO Compatible Peach’s Castle by Lepin / LQS 67601. We will look at the features of the set, a time lapse speed build and examine the instructions. We will look at the design and consider where it originated from along with our usual build experience, playability, display ability and value discussions.

Following on from this, we will sequentially look at the build after each bag to get a better sense of the internals and construction process. Finally we will leave off on a few little issues we found with the build.

‘Original’ design by S.Cossy can be found here:
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-74817/S.Cossy/super-mario-peachs-castle

Further information on the Holiday Homes / Airbnb / Short Term Lets can be found at http://www.macatsim.com/

Both flats, Broadstairs and Margate are about 75-90 minutes east of London UK. Margate has a LEGO themed Holiday Lets / Airbnb Short Term Stay awith a LEGO Wall. Broadstairs has an iconic red London bus bunk bed (at time of recording).

Time codes to the Video:
0:00 Introduction
0:55 Features of the Set
3:08 Closer Details
5:45 The Back of the Castle
6:30 Comparing with LEGO Disney Castle
7:10 Timelapse Speedbuild
9:36 Instruction Book
13:39 Design, 3d Model & Rebrickable
16:01 Build Experience
17:15 Playability
18:00 Displayability
18:30 Value
19:00 Unboxing
19:32 Everything Included
20:16 Sticker Sheet
20:28 Bag 1
21:00 Bag 2
21:33 Bag 3
21:59 Bag 4
22:19 Bag 5
22:49 Bag 6
23:05 Bag 7, 8 & 9
23:32 Bag 10 & 11
24:48 Build Issues
25:16 Summing Up

#legosupermario #nintendo #legomario #mario #supermario #trailermariolego #legostagram #review #LEGO #legoafol #legobricks #afol #legoman #legolife #legobuilder #legoinstragram #legofan #legocommunity #afolclub #legophotography #legofun #legomania #lepin #LQS #fakelego #peachscastle #castle #peach #malio

Jun 08

Top 5 LEGO MOCs of the Week – Episode 1

In this video series we check out the Top 5 LEGO MOCs of the week – episode 1. Which MOC will be the best one that we see this week?! As a viewer of the channel, do you have a MOC of your own you’d like to submit for consideration?! If so, drop it in the comments below.

Support the channel by supporting the kids Bricklink Family Bricks Shop for your MOC needs: https://store.bricklink.com/TribalNobody

MOCs feature in this weeks Episode:

A-Team Van
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-110669/Mazl77/gmc-vandura-a-team-van-1983/#details

Iron Man Mark 43
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-111519/Ransom_Fern/76155-76206-x-2-iron-man-mark-43/#details Iron Man AMOC
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-111579/anderson_lego_art/iron-man-76206-2-sets-amoc/#details

Skywalker Saga (Diorama Bundle)
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-108053/Breaaad/skywalker-saga-diorama-bundle/#details

Taylor Swift Mosaic
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-112394/KSZD/31205x2taylor-swift/#details

Michael Jordan / Kobe Bryant Mosaic
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-112220/KSZD/31204-michael-jordan-mosaic/#details

Robert Downy Junior Iron Man
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-112297/KSZD/31204iron-man-himself/#details

Leo Messi Mosaic
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-112137/KSZD/31204-leo-messi-mosaic/#details

3 Jokers Art Mosaic
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-111652/anderson_lego_art/lego-art-jokers/#details

Joker Bust
https://rebrickable.com/mocs/MOC-111843/ZetoVince/joker-bust/#details * MOCs = My Own Creations

May 11

Fun Whole FH 9001: Wood Cabin Retro House Delight Day and Night LED Unboxing LEGO Compatible

What is this?! In this video we go through an unboxing of the Fun Whole FH 9001: Wood Cabin Retro House, with Delight Day and Night LED lighting kit. What will we find in the box?! What do the kids think?

This is a LEGO ‘Compatible’ building construction brick toy set.

Product was provided by Fun Whole.

Opinions and commentary are our own.
Product can be purchased from: https://www.funwhole.com/products/funwhole-wood-cabin

Fun Whole Website: https://www.funwhole.com/en-gb

Amazon Link in the Video: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FunWhole-Modular-Building-Sets-Adults/dp/B09VRXWQ1G

Fun Whole Website: https://www.funwhole.com/en-gb

#unboxing #unboxingvideo #unboxings #unboxingchanel #unboxingmoment #unboxingjoy #review #unboxingandreview #unboxingtoys #LEGO #legobricks #legoman #legolife #legobuilder #legocreations #legoinstragram #legofan #legocommunity #legofun #legomania #legostagram #kidsplay #kidsplaying #kidsplaytime #keepingkidsbusy #funwithkids #macatsim #funwhole #legoalternative #logcabins

Transcript from the show:

G’day everyone Matt Elder Family Bricks here and today we’ve got something a little bit different we’re doing an unboxing that we’ve got here this was sent to us and provided to us but opinions and reactions will be our own so let’s get into it.

This was from halfway around the world yes it is it says brick separator.

It’s fizzy so this is a building brick set it’s done by a fun hole and as you can see it’s a cool little cabin and some lights there should go into it it’s pretty cool should we have a look and see what’s inside yes.

These are lights lights oh my god there’s so many lights.

We’ve got some stickers how many stickers audiences.

Looks like a telephone book of building instructions .

Oh no oh this looks funny it looks very fun.

I’m counting the lights one two three oh this is a black clipper piece bricks are crazy I’ve never heard of a black brake separator I’ve seen big ones but not small ones should we see how many bags are here uh we got some base plates.

Wait but I’ve never seen this set before so as you can see this is all the stuff we’ve got there’s lots of bags here they’re all sort of numbered.

Instructions light kits base plates looking at the box art it’s all nicely done in the black nice crisp photograph there did however get a little bit damaged in transit but we’ll ignore that. So some details, Fun Whole FH 9001 2097 pieces and they’re calling it the Wood Cabin Retro House and i guess the Delight Day and Night is kind of their branding name for the led lights which are included.

So looking at everything that is included in the box there’s actually a lot here as you can sort of see you’ve got numbered bags. Most of them have got five for each numbers one through seven although you do have some like five which has got six and seven has only got two so beyond all the numbered bags.

What else we got here we’ve got some lights in numbered bags so one two two two three and four and then a couple of the other bags sealed together. That looks like some plates in there brick separator i’m quite sure what that is i’m sure we’ll find out.

Just looking at some of these lights that we’ve got here these seem to be these sort of i guess quasi vacuum sealed bags again the quality on it feels quite good they certainly don’t feel like they’re cheaping out on any of the packaging.

Looking at the instruction manual it’s quite thick and it’s printed on some really nice paper like they haven’t cheaped out on this at all i’m just flicking through the instructions seems to be all reasonable sort of quality. I’m just looking at a little bit about it in the beginning here some information how to use some of the instructions it looks like some info on the lights, some troubleshooting, what’s included, light kits how to use a brick separator.

And then away from there a base plate and then another plate just feeling these feel comparable to what you’d normally expect. That seems to be relatively good quality as well and then of course a sticker sheet. So this is going to get interesting there seems to be a lot i’m guessing this is a wood texture with a bit of a transparency on it maybe. So if we took out some of those yeah 2 000 piece plus set seems to be reasonable. It’ll be interesting to see what the tackiness and the sticky sort of feel of.

That is a little information tag there, “thank you for choosing us”, some marketing stuff.

This is going to be fun to build hard to build but it’s going to be fun to build.

Here we have the company website funwhole.com and this is the English version of it. And as we can see there the lead image of it is the cabin that we’re going to be looking at and the first one there that they’re looking at selling. And then if you go down a lot of the other products that they seem to have lights kits for construction sets so just going back up here having a look at the wood cabin.

See some of the imagery that we have. Here are some photos of the actual product and it does actually look quite good so really looking forward to building this. It’s even got a little sheepy there. Sort of day night aspect and the reverse side and in a bit of an interior detail.

They’re also looking at selling a product through amazon.com.uk i’ll include a link around the video but this is the page here it says it’s currently unavailable but apparently it’s going to be up within a couple of days of this video recording. This will be the place to get the best price apparently.

So just having a look through got some slightly different images. Here it’s showing the day night comparison so on, the internal lights gonna be interesting to have a look through that, and again some dimensions and sorts of things like that. It looks like it’s gonna use an interesting building technique there, just scrolling through the rest of page some other promotional shots and further descriptions.

Going through for what’s included as what we’ve already said you know the buildings that the light kit the instructions usual sorts of things you’d expect.

How long do you think this is going to take a build, oh like a month or something, once a couple days couple days maybe, no okay we’ll have to see how long it takes. Work non-stop for hours and hours I suppose we might be able to do it in the day.

Thank you for watching Family Bricks. Please like share and subscribe so you don’t miss out on any more videos join us in the next video where we are going to review this so here’s the video of us going through and reviewing this and here are some other videos you might like.