Oxford Eiffel Tower

[Royalridge]

Possibly controversial, but I'd ran out of sets and there was nothing in Smyths I fancied that was within my "casual buy" price range, so just on a whim I picked up the Oxford Eiffel Tower.  At €40 it's a mid price set compared to Lego but at close to 2,000 pieces I thought it was good value and would keep me busy

Yesterday evening and a few hours on and off during today and it was complete.

It's not a small set!  The base is 4 20 stud x 20 stud plates and the whole thing ends up around 2' (61cm) tall (excluding the flag!)

Bricks feel similar to Lego and have an almost identical clutch, instructions were comprehensive and easy enough to follow.

Certainly good value and worth a try, unless you're a purist! :)

[poo699]

Looks good I thought about getting the oxford titanic but it was out of the stock

[Royalridge]

Looks good I thought about getting the oxford titanic but it was out of the stock

Have to say that after this one I'll certainly be picking up more.  I quite like Titanic and Tower Bridge.

[John]

Hi Royalridge it looks huge ,I fancied the bigrig  but i found out I'm a Lego  snob,can't even look at the shopkin bricks I assembled for my Daughter

[Royalridge]

Hi Royalridge it looks huge

It is!!!!!

,I fancied the bigrig  but i found out I'm a Lego  snob,can't even look at the shopkin bricks I assembled for my Daughter

That one doesn't really do it for me, I'll hang off and pick up the Technics Mack truck at some point.  As for being a Lego snob, I guess I got lucky with a good set that has a similar feel to Lego

[David]

I would consider myself a purist nowadays (with exception of using custom accessories from the likes of BrickArms/BrickForge) but that said as a teen I did buy a box or 2 of a clone brands (Qubo) - from Roches Stores (for about £2.50 each) -  and was very happy to do so with the price per brick being excellent (only real issue being slight colour mismatch).

At around 2cent a brick this set does seem good value part wise especially as it looks like most of the bricks are fairly blocky and not tiny 1x1 round transparent plates. I think the basic brick use though takes away from the actual design and if I did buy this set it would be to use  the parts on something else such as a mountain :D

How does the colour compare with dark blue grey?

[Royalridge]

At around 2cent a brick this set does seem good value part wise especially as it looks like most of the bricks are fairly blocky and not tiny 1x1 round transparent plates.

Indeed, while there are a fair number of 1x1 plates and 1x1 tiles there is a lot of larger pieces.

I think the basic brick use though takes away from the actual design

I kind of agree but mostly disagree, I think the use of basic blocks makes it look more like "old school" Lego when there wasn't so many "fancy" custom elements around.

How does the colour compare with dark blue grey?

Haven't really compared, it's a VERY dark grey, almost black.  I'll bring some of the (many!) spare bricks to the Dublin meet.

[David]

I think the use of basic blocks makes it look more like "old school" Lego when there wasn't so many "fancy" custom elements around.

That's certainly one way of looking at it!

Haven't really compared, it's a VERY dark grey, almost black.  I'll bring some of the (many!) spare bricks to the Dublin meet.

Would be very interesting to see. I am usually worried when I have too many spares. Hope Oxford are more generous than LEGO :D

[Royalridge]

I am usually worried when I have too many spares. Hope Oxford are more generous than LEGO :D

Me too! 

There were so many bits spare that I was sure I'd missed steps.  There's even plates that are listed in the instructions with a quantity and aren't anywhere in the build! 

Another example is a part that looks like a 1x4x2 lattice fence with studs on the top, there's 20 of these but only 16 used in the build.  Having four moderate sized elements sitting in a bag at the end of the build I had to re-read the instructions and count the number of times the element appeared to make sure I hadn't missed a step.

[Chris Hastings]

That model looks great!

As a kid I had a lot of mega bloks (mainly the blok bots or whatever they were called) and to my older self's dismay, I never kept the pieces separate.

Fast forward however many years and now every time I am hunting through my boxes for a part that I need I always lift the mega branded one first!

When I got into Halo Megabloks I thankfully had the sense to keep them in a separate box at the other end of the house so there is no possibility of cross-contamination haha.