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by OVERWHELMING POPULAR DEMAND here is a thread for useful parts from clone brands. Everybody's welcome to contribute. I'll be updating it now and then with stuff from my collection. For a start, some hands. I haven't been too happy with what's available for mech building, so these immediately caught my eye. These are rather nice. Poseable, expressive, good for medium mechs. They can't actually hold things - thumbs are too loose and there's not enough finger segments - but there's an attachment point in each palm, either stud or pin-sized. They're exclusive to this one nameless action figure series. Since the sellers shove as many keywords into the title as possible to game search results, you can only find them by searching for character name (Xiang Yu, there's also Lu Bu, Gao Jianli, Han Xin, maybe others) and digging through the sellers' inventory for others. Welcome to aliexpress. Some of those sets have interesting parts, like the big sword blades in black. Quality overall is poor. The hands hold up well, but the parts often have sprue remains that have to be cut off, the face prints are terrible, and so on... still, most of it is standard bionicle parts, durable enough to be useful.
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So, I bought these little dragon sets, Sembo Blocks brand, sets 8600-8604. They are neat, so here's a minireview and some pics for anybody interested. Images linked because size. white https://flic.kr/p/Yzpgan green https://flic.kr/p/XjBCDh blue https://flic.kr/p/XmzZ6F red https://flic.kr/p/XnmeXr minifigs, and color comparison with genuine lego legos on the right https://flic.kr/p/YqBK8c the bad: Overall quality is a little below Lego, somewhat better than Enlighten I'd guess. The plastic feels a shade softer, part edges sharper. The ball joints are quite tight, which causes a bit of an issue: the ankle joints' clutch is tighter than that of the lower leg assembly, so the legs work themselves loose while playing/posing with the things. It's the worst on the green dragon, for some reason, where I ended up fixing the issue by adding a 1x1 round Lego plate. Aside from that, I've had exactly one part with a bit of excess flash, and that's really the worst of it for quality issues. The bar between the toes is thinner than a standard bar, crushing my dreams of adding claws. The printed parts' printing is pretty unimpressive. Blue Ninja looks like a douchebag. the good: These are really excellent parts packs. Yes the mixel joints are compatible with Lego, rather on the tight side, though. Decent color matching. But I'm one of those people that mixes old and new grays deliberately, so take that with an appropriately sized grain of salt. Some really neat building techniques, like the wings being integrated with clawed paws. They're just fun, poseable, expressive, lots of points of articulation, room for a ninja to ride on top - standing room only and it looks kind of dumb, but still, the option is there. Durable enough to fiddle and play with, even with all those pointy bits sticking out in every direction. I had planned on putting them together, taking pics an immediately breaking them down for parts, but they're somehow still on display, and taking turns being desk toys. The set of four cost me $15 on aliexpress. Very worth the price. 10/10, A+ would buy again and since I bought two sets, I guess I already did. The sellers are incapable of using proper titles, so good luck searching for Sembo Blocks; instead these are, ahem, 4pc/set Ninjagoes dragon knight building blocks kids hot toys ninja bricks mini action figures enlighten toy for children friend Right. I'll just leave the store link here if anybody's interested. edit: aaaaand I made the thread in the wrong forum. Could someone move it to community please? edit again: thanks!
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My God, it's full of studs: Wange aircraft series review
Space Police XVIII posted a topic in Community
So I bought these aircraft sets. Wange JX001, 002, 003. They're pretty neat. Quality is decent. They sort of lean toward model kit, a little, with those specialized parts. I bought them specifically for those, wanted to accessorize my MOCs with weird wings and stuff, and for that they're pretty much perfect. They're built at different scales, but the not-quite-minifigs are the same; clearly, the Chinese military is breeding a race of supersized supersoldiers. I wonder if the President knows about this. Anyways, first the jet, JX003, manual says it's a J20 heavy stealth fighter. I actually really like this. Solid, swooshable, I think it looks neat, especially those angled tailplanes. Landing gear is fixed - in fact all three use the same landing gear - and there's an opening missile bay with two missiles. Also a retractable taillight. In trans-neon-green, for reasons foreign and mysterious to me. Next, JX002, a WZ10 gunship. .....yeah Its action features include scaring small children with its face, spinning rotors and bits falling off. It's not a very good set. These things are not Lego quality, in general, and the construction of this one shows it: the layered plates add up to where parts show gaps, there are several weak connections, the cannon just sort of flops around on a turntable, and the wings are attached just by this 1x4 bit. Better design could have allowed full minifigs but noooooo. It is at least a very nice supply of unusual parts: The minifigs have little Lego Racers style bodies, the heads/helmets being slightly more narrow than Lego parts. All parts are printed, there are no stickers. Friction pins are light gray and frictionless, white. There're some interesting pieces here, I think, including 1x2 plates with studs on both sides. These are equal in thickness to Lego plates, each set comes with a bunch. JX003 bits: Also some useful junk. JX001 is some sort of license-built Sukhoi, a carrier-based fighter in the People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force. Heh. It has already been stripped for parts, here are its wings, I haven't bothered to wipe off the markings there, yet. We People's Classic Liberation Space Army now. Also it's an okay photo for showing off color differences. Here's another. Even bluer than bley.... I tend to mix old and new grays deliberately so I personally don't mind very much. Since I'm not posting 001, here's its parts inventory at least. And it's got these neat missiles: Both ends accept Lego parts, the 1x1 cones and trans-red bricks are Lego. The smaller missiles, meanwhile, only have an anti-stud on the back. Both attach to aircraft by this narrow slot, which can accept the edge of a flag piece, the vertical bit of a small 1x2 panel, that sort of thing. The intructions are of decent quality. Parts already placed are in colorless white to avoid drowning in a sea of gray. This isn't Lego quality, but good enough that I've tossed the standard plates and wedges in with Lego and use them interchangeably; the biggest problems are the slightly different color, the blank studs, and now and then the damn hideous injection mold marking whatever it's actually called. I wish I could say I haven't seen worse from Lego, though. Anyway, parts fit together decently, with tight clutch, the models hold together well, and tolerance issues only show up if there's say a bunch of them stacked together, or supporting something that's only hanging on by a 1x2 connection like the gunship's warty nose. Set design could be a lot better. 001 and 002 both have bits that fall off easily. 003 is nice and solid though, and the fit of parts like the 1x6 base of the vertical stabilizer is improved. Maybe that's a running theme? I plan on getting one more anyway - the JX006 Osprey - so I'll find out. That's about it. Thanks for taking a look. If anyone really really really wants those plates with studs on both sides, JX001 is the best purchase, it's got 25.