A couple of curious items showed up under the LEGO Xtra line; the #854048 LEGO Xtra Road Tape and the #854065 LEGO Xtra Water Tape. The LEGO Xtra collection has been pretty good at providing interesting accessories for LEGO City fans, so it’s a good idea to check once in a while what’s new in this category. So, let’s see that the new tapes look like.
Both the #854048 LEGO Xtra Road Tape and the #854065 LEGO Xtra Water Tape are literally that – a roll of tape. The material and stickiness is similar to the masking tape that painters use, so they’re pretty easy to apply and remove, and perhaps even reuse a couple of times if you’re careful with it.
The #854048 LEGO Xtra Road Tape is mostly gray and features road markings, tire skid marks, and grass effects, and the #854065 LEGO Xtra Water Tape is blue with ripple and wave effects.
Both of the tapes are about 3” (8cm) wide, and you get about 15m (49ft) long of the material. This works well for the #854065 LEGO Xtra Water Tape, as you can make long rivers, or by laying pieces of the tape next to each other horizontally, you can even make a wider body of water.
The #854048 LEGO Xtra Road Tape is great for quickly laying out roads, but because it’s only three inches wide, and with a divider in the middle, it only works with the narrowest 4-stud wide cars. So, unfortunately it’s not a substitute – or even addition – to LEGO City road-plates. Without the divider, it could have been a great way to cover up the surface of a standard 12-inch wide shelf in front of the LEGO Modular Buildings (or other narrow street layout). A missed opportunity.
Both the #854048 LEGO Xtra Road Tape and the #854065 LEGO Xtra Water Tape come with some useful LEGO pieces. Most noteworthy is the scooter that comes with the road tape (always nice to get one of these), and the water tape comes with a dark-blue toolbox that’s still quite rare.
Whether you have any use for the #854048 LEGO Xtra Road Tape and the #854065 LEGO Xtra Water Tape depends on your needs, but the bottom line is that they are good quality and might be useful for some LEGO fans. If you want to check them out, they are available at the LEGO Xtra section of the Online LEGO Shop.
What do you think? How do you like the idea of sticky tape used to create surfaces for LEGO play or display? Would you use either the road tape or water tape? Or would you like some other design? Feel free to share your thoughts and discuss in the comment section below!
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It seems like the Xtra line is hit or miss. They have those really good small packs, then they have stuff like this that doesn’t make much sense.
Not for me, but kiddos may like it.
Whatever happened to those reusable stickers I used to see at toysrus some years back? They were invented by a kid or something.
Reusability probably depends on the kind of glue used. I remember Post-It notes were invented by a chemist who first thought that his invented glue was too weak, or something like that…
They are called BrickStix. They are still available: https://amzn.to/38gfCZ9
Geez, some of the UK prices are insane. Perhaps the American distribution is more affordable…
If they made the road tape without the divider, it would be so much better. With the divider, the lanes are too narrow. Okay for kids, I suppose, but they could have made it so much better if the width of the lanes matched the road plates.
I agree. Road tape in an appropriate width would be great for having roads that ran at an angle. Shouldn’t the road tapes in the picture overlap to eliminate the green borders?
Can the tapes be put on carpet? Then pulled off without damage?
Xtra is a great concept. AFOLers probably need specific pieces in bulk. How about (fancy) fences? traffic signs? The traffic cones included with the tapes? A pack of 10-20 garbage cans and covers? My list could go on…..
I see the potential for non-lego road solutions. Perhaps if they made other types of designs some of it might work for a wider audience.
We also need medieval cobblestone roads and dirt paths. I would use those!
Seems like something that would be lots of fun for kids, though it probably wouldn’t last too long. Like others have mentioned, the road seems to be a missed opportunity to create something really useful for a display by making it fit standard LEGO road plate/car sizes.
So I bought some of this stuff. Here’s the weird thing. I’m not sure how I feel about it for use in a display. It has some limitations.
But as tape? It’s a rather high end durable tape that is comparable to a high end masking tape given its price.
Can’t say this will ever be in high demand.