DMClarke

I'm beginning to like that the sales at Amazon are better than using the VIP at the Lego Store.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here but... Lego and Cuusoo and not the same company or owned by the same company, are they? I know Lego fairly well and my research on Cuusoo seems to point to a Japanese site that is used by many designers to get ideas made by many different manufactures. Too many comments here talk of Lego's actions or lack of action in a case that seems to be solely Cuusoo's to handle. Having an agreement to review projects that reach X level of support would not mean that Lego has any obligation to get involved in other matters between Cuusoo and it's users. Am I completely off base about this?

I completed the 10220 VW Camper Van over the weekend. While I know that the 16+ kits are not designed to be toys and some parts of the kits can be rather loose in their assembly, but I ran into a problem with the pop-up camper top that bugged me enough that I performed my first modification to a kit. The pair of brown 1x4 bricks were just not strong enough to hold the scissor hinges in place when operating the pop-up camper feature. When the whole assembly pops loose, that fabric curtain surround has to be removed to some degree to reset the bricks. Plus, that fabric gets in between the bricks when you close it and the top never really gets completely closed on my kit - the top could not press down on the assembly to re-seat those brown bricks at all. Like most Lego things, I found the project to fix this a lot of fun. I didn't want to remove pieces from any other kits, so I grabbed a bag of about 30 random bricks and tiles I had from my local Lego store's wall of bricks (most of the cup I bought went to my wife's therapy kids but that's another story). It was like the Apollo 13 "square filter in a round hole" issue - I need to lock the hinges down and I only have these 30 random pieces to work with. I found a way to stack a handful of 1x2 tiles on top of the red 2x2 tile that was already on the van and I tied it all into the rear curtain mount to add strength my locking technique. I did make the entire assembly one tile taller with a 2x6 tile (the only one I had in the bag). It does not pop loose now and while the top still does not completely close, I know that when I press down on the top, the hinge assembly is being re-seated.