(Written by Geneva – gid617)
As I mentioned last week, I have been working on a series of LEGO amusement park projects by combining sets from different themes. After combining a set from LEGO Friends with one from LEGO Ninjago (LEGO Set Mash-Up: Combining Friends & Ninjago), let’s continue with another combination. This time, we will bring together the #31095 LEGO Creator Fairground Carousel and the #60224 LEGO City Satellite Service Mission for a LEGO City themed free fall ride! The LEGO Creator Fairground Carousel is a 3-in-1 set (like most LEGO Creator sets), and I chose to build the free fall instead of the carousel. A LEGO City spaceship seemed like the logical choice for a mash-up after that.
As those of you who have built LEGO Creator 3-in-1 sets know, there are usually several pieces left after building the alternate models. In this set, I was left with quite a handful of extra pieces, so I had plenty to work with – a good thing, because I was less than thrilled with the original color combination. I tore down the tin-tin rocket on top of the set, and then continued by stripping off and replacing the lime-green, blue, and other clashing colors of the base.
I was delighted to see how well the spaceship replaced the tin-tin rocket! It has the perfect amount of space at the back (originally designed for carrying the small satellite, which I ended up attaching to the base), with more than enough room to fit the LEGO Technic beams of the free fall ride. Other than that, I used pieces from the tin-tin rocket to change the blue and lime colors to red and white, which go much better with the LEGO City spaceship. The base also went from blue to light grey. Those nice round sloping light-grey pieces were leftovers from the carousel build. I’m not sure why they weren’t used as the base of the free fall in the first place – they’re the perfect size and a much more neutral color! (Yes, the blue, lime-green, yellow, red, and white of the original had me cringing.)
With the leftover pieces I was also able to build a bench and a little ice cream stand. There were still plenty of pieces afterwards, in all kinds of colors, but I didn’t want to just throw something haphazard together.
The mechanism for the free fall is a simple but ingenious one. A wedge piece on the back of the seat, a little crank that swings out, and down you go! What especially impressed me is that the wedge piece automatically pushes the crank out of the way when you slide the seat back up, and then the weight of the crank makes it catch – very easy to reload!
The satellite from the LEGO City spaceship set is a fun little build that I very much wanted to include. Fortunately, there were plenty of spare clips and I had no trouble attaching it to the base. I did have to make a point of angling it out of the way of the falling chairs though!
As you can see, these minifigures are enjoying their revamped ride. I hope the astronaut likes his new job as much! At least he has a nice view of outer space.
These two sets were surprisingly easy to combine, and I think the end result looks great! After the technical difficulties of my last mash-up, this one was a fun, straightforward build that makes me think LEGO Creator sets might be a good choice for mash-ups in general.
What do you think? Have you ever tried combining two sets into one creation? What challenges did you face along the way? And what do you think about this particular mash-up? Do the colors work? What would you have done differently? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below!
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I was curious what the second part of this article is going to be. Good choice for the sets to combine. I think the freefall ride could be made taller. The shuttle looks a bit too big for such a short ride. I want to see a two feet tall fall (if the minifigs can handle it).
Thanks! Yes, I wanted to make it a little taller, but without bringing in some pieces from another source, I couldn’t have done that. And after all, when you think about it from a minifigure’s perspective, it’s a pretty long drop already! 😆 Two feet tall would be pretty cool to see though! 😉
Oh, right, I forgot that you were limiting yourself to just pieces from the sets. Thanks for clarifying
I haven’t thought about mixing up those too, but I like the idea. You could even make all the rides space-themed, and make a space park!
That was actually my first idea when I started going on the amusement park theme, making it all space themed! 😀 But I got too excited about using the Ninjago snake so… 😉
My kids have both sets and want to do this. How is the spaceship attached to the technic pole? Is that obvious when you take the rocket off? Or did you have to do some tricks?
I took the tin tin rocket completely off the free fall, leaving only the long dark grey technic pieces. From there, I just attached two 2×1 bricks with a hole for a technic pin in the middle (there were several spares in the Creator set) to the top dark grey piece using ordinary black pins. There’s a space at the back of the spaceship for the satellite – if you take the orange tiles off, it’s easy to attach the 2×1 bricks to the black bottom of the ship. Then just use any bricks to fill up the space so that it all sticks securely together!
Cool idea. Is the base stable enough to hold up the whole contraption? The shuttle seems larger and wider than the original rocket. I suppose it could be made bigger easily. I was just curious how is the stability of the bigger ride.
Yes, quite stable. The shuttle isn’t heavy, it’s mostly wingspan (but yes, much bigger than the original). And like you say, for extra stability you could attach it to a bigger baseplate!
I think the spaceship should be the seat. Make the drop taller and minifigs can sit inside and simulate them being crashed in a SPACESHIP!!
Yes!! I thought of that briefly. The complicated part is that you need a catch at the very top, and what would be on top of a spaceship? Or maybe you don’t absolutely need a catch at the top, if you’re just interested in the play value and don’t mind the spaceship always being at the bottom when not in use.
Are you going to mix the giant roller coaster with other sets? I would love to see it in something like Friends colors. 😀 Seriously though, you’re doing an awesome job mixing these sets. It gives me some ideas.
I would love to! But it was a little outside the budget. 😉 Plus, the bigger they get the harder it is to cohesively mix sets/themes.
Thanks! Hope the ideas keep on coming! 🙂
My son wanted to share his idea with you. If you plan to continue this series, he thinks it would be cool to mix all the sets together at the end. 😀
That’s a neat idea! I have something a little similar planned (bringing in some of my own pieces too though), I hope he’ll enjoy it! 😉
Geneva, check this out. I think you will like it: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianhoy/48722724512/
Oh yes! I saw that a while ago, a well done ride. I like the tires at the bottom especially. And the background is impressive too!