Parts came in for my not Lego Jerac Tie Bomber - Update

Hey all!  Welcome back to my Bricks and Figs blog where I show you my latest minifigures, mods and MOCs.  Today, I wanted to give you an update on my not Lego Jerac's custom Tie Bomber MOC 13952.   A couple of weeks ago, I posted my fixes to the address the poor brick clutch of the model.   As you can see from the picture above, I still had issues with wrong colour body panels as well as missing hinge parts for the engine cowling corners.

I'm pleased to report that the extra parts I ordered from Aliexpress finally arrived and I was able to replace the deficient panels and hinges.   Here's how the ship looks now.  The only thing I still need to replace is the cockpit windscreen (I'm using the round skylight from the Sanctum Santorum set, temporarily).

Here's the overhead view and you can see there's no visible off-colour body panels.

This view is the underside of the TIE bomber.
 There were eleven panels that were dark gray instead of light gray.  I ended up ordering 10 pieces of the light gray panels for $1.  As a result, I have one panel that is still dark gray that hasn't been replaced.  The pic above shows where it is.

 Finally, here is how the rear of the ship looks after replacing all the hinges on the corners where the fuselage meets the engines.   The hinges cost me about $2 for 20 hinges, so the total cost of the fixes for the TIE bomber was around $3 shipped.


Here's the link for the parts I used.  They were the cheapest I could find off Aliexpress, but if you see a better deal, go for it.

Two piece hinge (set of 10).  https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_dSixodA

Light gray curved panels (set of 10).  https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_dXI0T7e

Well, that's it, just a short little post to let you know that I've fixed most of the issues with not Lego version of Jerac's TIE Bomber.  Thanks for looking!

If you are interested in getting the not Lego set of Jerac's Tie Bomber from Aliexpress, please follow the link below.

AliExpress.com Product - 1494Pcs DIY MOC TIE Bomber Small Particle Building Block Model Compatible Legged 13952

My Not Lego Police Station Modular MOC - Part Two

Hey brick fans!  Welcome back to the Bricks and Figs blog where I review the latest MOCs and minifigures in my not Lego brick collection.  In this post, we will continue to follow the progress of the new Its-Not-Lego police station modular building.  If you've just arrived at this blog post, make sure you check out Part One to this post here, to find out what has transpired to date.

First Looks

In our previous post, the Its-Not-Lego town police chief expanded the project scope to make the police station larger, resulting in extra cost and more delays to redesign and re-engineer the building.  Never the less, work has to continue and we are pleased to provide you with the latest progress to the police station modular.

Recall that the Green Grocer is now brown, not green anymore.  Bricks have been ordered to replace all the sand green bricks with coffee brown, however at the moment only the front and some sides of the building have been replaced.

Starting from the third floor and working downwards, let's look at what else has changed.  The third floor dormer windows have been replaced, providing a cleaner and simpler look.  The police chief is currently undecided on whether he wants the third floor height might to be raised for extra headroom.  But, let's not get ahead of ourselves, just yet.

No significant changes to the bay windows other than the addition of the police signage.  Some windows are not yet glazed but this will be rectified in the next phase.

Moving down to the second floor.  The tan windows in the proof of concept phase have now been painted black.  The window treatments and balcony railings from the original green grocer have now been deleted.  Tan coloured details above the windows remain intact.

There's no mistaking this police station with the large printed sign (courtesy of the Enlighten brand police set #128).  Dark tinted windows with printed stripes also enhance the look.

What used to be the entrance arch has now been replaced by a not quite functional garage door.  The door rails are the poorly made discards from the Lepin Fire Brigade set which I mentioned in my post here.  I needed something, so this will do for now.  Looks good though.   Added a driveway and yellow striping and bumpers.  Light fixtures from the original set were reused.

This side view gives you a better idea as to how deep the new police station will be extended back, almost six studs in some cases.  The floors of the second and third storeys need to be re-engineered, as a result.  New baseplates are on order.

Here's the first floor. Interior wise, the police station is empty.  

Still need to figure out the layout.  For now, there's a door that leads into the garage bay and two interior windows.  The entire front sign can be removed easily.

View looking forward.  Stair case needs to be added and maybe a back door also. Next phase.

Am thinking of doing a slight roof overhang here.  Might need to redo this whole back section.

A couple of the detectives come by to check out the progress of their new workplace.

I dunno. Does the police chief look happy or not?  Do you think he likes how the police station looks, so far?  Let me know what you think of this design in the comments below. 

Next update will be whenever the remaining bricks and plates are delivered.  Thanks for visiting and bye for now!

My Police Station Building MOC using the King Brand Green Grocer - Part One

Hey all, welcome back to my Bricks and Figs blog, where I show you my latest MOCs and minifigures.   Today, I will be showing you my latest Lego style modular building, which is a Police Station for my Its-Not-Lego town.

Background

Its-Not-Lego town does not have a police station despite having two distinct law enforcement units, the regular policing division and the tactical division, shown above.

The mayor of Its-Not-Lego town wanted the new police station to address the needs of day to day policing, so a new building was commissioned.  Due to the town's budgetary constraints, it was decided that the new police station had to be stylish but economical to build. The town planners looked at various Lego style police buildings.

A lot of police station designs are based on the typical Lego blue and white building, however this style of building is too contemporary and wouldn't match the style of buildings found in Its-Not-Lego town.  So just meh.

The town planners also looked at other police station MOC buildings and got some great ideas.  Here's a few that captured their interest:

Top left - looks like this design is based on the fire brigade building
Top right - great design, but looks too cheerful to be a police station
Lower left- this design has Town Hall influences
Lower right - interesting corner build but might be limited on space

The Green Grocer

As it happened, Aliexpress was having it's mid-summer sale and one of the stores had the Green Grocer modular building on sale. Combined with store discounts and Aliexpress coupons, the Green Grocer cost worked out to be around $69 Cdn, shipped.

The Green Grocer modular is an iconic building with real the Lego version fetching for around $1000 CDN.  It's immediately recognizable and has a distinctive design.  To serve as a police station, the sand green bricks would need to be replaced with a colour more sombre, but not white, not blue, not gray, not black.  After narrowing down the choices, brown was picked as the colour of the new police station.

After waiting about 6 weeks, the Green Grocer modular building was finally delivered.  My first not Lego Green Grocer was made by Lepin, but this one is now made by King, the successor to now defunct Lepin.  The King branded Green Grocer set number is 84008 and to avoid custom issues in Europe, the instruction manual just has a black cover page.  Other than that, the rest of the instruction manual is identical to the Lego/Lepin version.

The King brand Green Grocer was constructed to inspect the build quality and make sure there were no missing pieces.

Its-Not-Lego city engineers came out to verify the structure was sound.  The interior would not need to be completed as the it would be gutted later, anyways.
Construction was put on hold for about a month as the delivery of the replacement bricks was delayed.

The Modifications

Finally, the replacement bricks arrived.  Here is the King Green Grocer with brown masonry bricks sitting next to the Lepin Green Grocer modular.  Side note:  The Lepin Green Grocer third floor windows were previously modified as was the turret roof height, in case you are wondering why it looks a tad different from the original.

For the Police Station proof of concept, only the bricks for the front facade were ordered.  Now having seen that the Green Grocer looks decent in brown, the more brown bricks would need to be ordered to completely replace the sand green.

 The demolition crew came in to dismantle the storefront.  The ladies in the crew just had their hair done, so no way they were going to mess it up with helmets.  Labour enforcement officials were generously "compensated"to keep quiet.

Just as progress was being made, the Its-Not-Lego town police chief felt that the original footprint of the Green Grocer modular was insufficient for this needs and requested the architects to increase the square footage.  All remaining walls need to be extended and reinforced and new baseplate sections need to be ordered as well as more bricks.  This project has officially gone off the rails!

What will happen to the new police station modular building?  Find out in Part Two!   Thanks for visiting and see you in the next post!  Bye!