Clone OPatra Posted May 10, 2009 Posted May 10, 2009 "West - the final frontier!" Set Title: Sheriff's Lock-Up Set #: 6755 Theme: Wild West Pieces: 170 Minifigures: 4 Year of Release: 1996 Price at Release: USD $25 Buy it? Inventory? Peeron Bricklink BOX The first part of any set is, of course, the box. This picture is courtesy of Bricklink; my box is long gone. The box has a nice Wild West art design, with the cactuses and the sand and the mountains and sky. It also has a few... problems, if you think about it. First, why was the deputy on the roof and why is he now running off it? Second, how did the bandit in the brown cowboy hat get up on the jail roof and why is he running off it? Third, why is the dynamite flying through the air along with a gold coin if it had been used to blow the jail apart. Fourth, and finally, why does the bandit in the jail have a gun and why isn't he trying to escape from the jail that's just been blown up? I have no answers, except that the box is just designed to show maximum playability and fun. INSTRUCTIONS The front of the instructions shares the same head-scratchers with the box front, so I won't go into detail about that again. The first two pages show that the instructions are printed in portrait mode, have a nice "out west" fealing background color, and a nice old west font for the numbers. Also note that the horse comes with two option, saddle or no saddle. The back shows the 22nd, and final, step of the instructions, which is to add the minifigures and guns. It also shows how to blow off the jail side, which will be covered in depth later. MINIFIGURES and HORSE Let's get the animal out of the way first. It is a nice white LEGO horse with a brown saddle, not anything special going on. As always, the horse is a nice and necessary detail in a western set. Now onto the characters. This set comes with a perfect mix of two bandits and two law-enforcers so that you can make fair battles. Each of them has a nice, old west torso, with lovely shirt and jacket detailing. The card-game themed green vest of the bandit in the stovepipe hat is a bit odd, but still cool looking. I especially love the hairy chest of the red-shirted bandit. One more excellent thing about these minifigures is the variety among them: four different leg colors, all with different hats and torsos, and even a different style fo hat wearing (as per the instructions) for the red bandit! The minifigures' backs have no printing, which is a shame, but back printing was ultra-rare if not never seen back in 1996, so I can't complain. If these sets were redone (like the new Pirates), I'm sure everyone would have an awesome back printing too, but really, it's not a problem not to have it. And now, the guns! Yes, this set comes with a total of four pistols and three rifles. That's seven guns for four minifigures! This is one of the greatest parts of the western sets, LEGO wasn't stingy on the old west violence! I think the whole western line was the first to have real LEGO guns, but I'm not 100% sure on that. Our friends, packin' all the heat! PIECES After you've had enough fun playing with the beautiful minifigures and their seven guns (!), it's time to get ready to build. First, pour all the pieces into a pile. As you may be able to see, some pieces already have stickers applied to them. That is because I had this set built for many years, and just took it apart to clean it for this review. Special pieces. Apart from the spring, which you will see later, the other special/stickered/printed pieces are the safe, the windows, the tiles of dynamite, wanted sign, and cards, and the jail, which I just find special, although it came in several sets. So that you can see it up close, here again is the cool wanted sign, a printed piece. What I believe it says (with thanks to The Cobra) is "WANTED. Flatfoot Thomsen, for bank robbery, dead or alive, Reward $500." I can't make out those other lines. It is also nice that the picture looks like the red bandit that comes with the set. BUILD Now that the pieces have been dumped out, it is time to start building. Around step 4, the floor of the office and a little bit of the jail are apparent. Four steps more, and a table and some hinges are added in the office and some more is added to the jail. Looking good so far. Around step 12 some walls have been added to the office and the back of the jail. In four more steps the office gets a door and windows, as does the jail. It already looks great, but it'll get better! A break is taken from the main model between steps 17 and 18 to build the explode-able jail door. It starts with this base... ...and ends up looking like this. Very sleek! (It looks like I missed that black brick on top when I dusted.) At step 19 the sheriff and his deputy add their lovely wanted sign. At step 20 they add the roof. It is nice to get so many black hinge plates (four), and it allows for two separate sections of the roof to be lifted up alone from the other. Step 21 adds the "sheriff" sign, and we're done! It looks great, such a quaint little office and jail. The barrel and shrub also add nice detail. I imagine this being off in the desert by itself, moderately far from any town, with just two officers passing the time between catching bandits. SET The set's been built, so it's time to show it off! We start with the front. The deput is chasing the red bandit on horseback, while the sheriff is coming out of his office and the green bandit is locked up. It looks very much like our images of the wild west, which make it such a great set! I just love all the details, as I will get to, especially how the office is raised off the ground just like it would be! From the left side of the scene, we see the wall and porch of the office, which look nice and old style from this angle. Another angled view of the porch, I just couldn't resist! The windows are especially nice, and the placement of the railings one stud from the edge instead of right at the edge is also perfect. A view of just the office. My it is purty! From the right side of the scene, we see the jail wall and the office in the distance. The whole thing from the back. Some more of the great details, like the cup outside the jail window, and the sheriff's specially planted safe are evident here. The inside of the office is bare, but there isn't much space anyway so it is nice. A bird's eye view doesn't show much, apart from the nice size of the buildings. There isn't anything atop the office, but what would go up there? DETAIL In this section I will point out all the great detail in close ups. Let's start with the fire and cup outside the jail window. This is so great because LEGO actually designed a way for the officers to realistically feed the cellmate without opening the door. Kudos! The jail inside is bare, but good and hard for a mean bandit! The barrel is also a nice addition, allowing the bandit to hide (if not completely). You could also store some of those many guns in here. The wooden railing of sorts provides a lookout for the officers. (Where is that red bandit, I wonder?) Then there are the special parts of the sheriff's office. Here's a picture of it again to start me off. First, we see the chair is on hinges, which makes it quite high up compared to the table. There is no apparent reason for the hinges, so I made up a little story. This story will demonstrate a reason for the hinges and the sheriff's super-smart money-protecting idea. "The green guy unexpectedly pops out of the desert plain and walks up to the office. He goes right for the safe, but it is empty. 'The sheriff must be up to something,' he thinks. This isn't a guy to fool around, so he points his gun right at the sheriff and asks where the money is. The sheriff isn't talking, so the guy shoots the sheriff, and the chair is blown back to show the strength of the shot. After snooping around, the bandit finds that the sheriff planted the empty safe because he was stashing the money in his table! The green guy runs away, and retires with the cash." PLAY ACTION This review wouldn't be complete without showcasing the special exploding door. There is a hole in the back of the jail to insert the dynamite brick into. From the top (with the roof off), you can make out that there is a spring in there, and that the dynamite is going in under it. When the dynamite is pushed in far enough, it causes the spring to pop up and blow off the door. (No, that badge piece isn't supposed to be there, but I couldn't find the right blank tile.) And now, a video of it in action to get a real sense of how it works. The mechanism isn't great, and sometimes the door is just pushed forward a little instead of blown off. In this trial it works as well as it can, though. Still, this feature is a great addition to the set, and it certainly boosts the playability. CONCLUSION Usually I take even the littlest oddity to be a problem with a set, but there is only one oddity in this set and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. That one oddity, as mentioned above, is the sheriff's hinged chair that can hardly be tipped back with him in it, rendering it useless. But who doesn't love the old style of hinges (I really love 'em), so why wouldn't I want two of them? The build is brilliant: the combination of black and gray on the jail makes it really look like it's made out of stone or mud, and everything about the office looks perfect for the time period and feel being portrayed. The minifig selection is also beautiful, and the number of guns gets a big A+ from me! Without the exploding jail, I'd still completely love this set, so I think of that as just a bonus! CONCLUSION by NUMBERS Minifigures: 10/10 - An unequivocal yes! to them all. Build: 10/10 - Plenty of different parts to build which make it never repetitive. Just about nothing comes up twice, and since you're building to buildings at once it's quite varied. Pieces: 10/10 - A great selection, wonderful printed parts, nicely designed and easy-to-get-right stickers (I don't mind stickers), and lots of guns! Playability: 10/10 - So many guns already make for great playability, but the additions of the mystery table and the exploding jail boost it higher. Price: 9.5/10 - This was a hard descision because really, for 170 pieces the price should not have been above $20. However, I understand that LEGO can't just charge $20 if they give you two nicely-sized buildings, four beautiful minifigs, and seven guns! Let this go as a reminder to those complainers in the SW forum that LEGO has always over-priced things a little, and it isn't a new development. Overall: 9.9/10 - If you can find it for under USD $35 nowadays, don't hesitate! Quote
Natman8000 Posted May 10, 2009 Posted May 10, 2009 Great review! I love this set and this theme! I would love for some western sets. Thanks for reviewing this set! Quote
AND3RSEN Posted May 10, 2009 Posted May 10, 2009 great review! i love the door that blows off! wish i had bought it Quote
Lordofdragonss Posted May 10, 2009 Posted May 10, 2009 Wow, this Blowup machanism is really clever! I hope you will make other Western Sets reviews, becouse this one was really good! Big plus for movie! Quote
ChrisVA Posted May 11, 2009 Posted May 11, 2009 Got it when it came out. An excellent mid sized set. Nice selection of figures and weapons. This was one the best designed western sets. Quote
Raphy Posted May 11, 2009 Posted May 11, 2009 Nice review! Western 4 evar! btw I believe the hinges under the chair were so you could pose the Sherriff leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk ;) Quote
The Cobra Posted May 11, 2009 Posted May 11, 2009 I rated this set "Excellent", and I'm not the only one Excellent review as well! Quote
Rijkvv Posted May 11, 2009 Posted May 11, 2009 About the chair: maybe it's supposed to be a rocking chair. I voted "good". It's nice for it's size, but I think the jail is a strange thing. Because it's a seperate building, everyone can get to it unnoticed. And give the prisoner a gun. I noticed the lookout, but it's still more logical if the jail was in the office itself. Great review! Quote
Tom Bricks Posted May 11, 2009 Posted May 11, 2009 I had to rate this set as excellent because of 3 reasons: 4 varied minifigs the tan baseplate 7 guns !!! This was my only Western Set and now I wish I could have bought more. The only bad thing about this set is that my two hinge plates broke very easily. Quote
Clone OPatra Posted May 11, 2009 Author Posted May 11, 2009 The only bad thing about this set is that my two hinge plates broke very easily. Really? That is very interesting. I have a nice quantity of the old style hinges that I have used multiple times, and they have yet to even show any wear. I have always loved these old hinges much more than the new style ones because these old ones are so much more posable and much less limited than the newer kind. I do understand now that the various reasons for the hinged chair that other members have offered are much more reasonable than my own interpretation. However, the hinges still make for a funny story! Quote
SlyOwl Posted May 12, 2009 Posted May 12, 2009 Great review I seriously considered getting this set when it came out as a Legend (I wasn't bothered about Western the first time round), but the price tag put me off, as it looked rather unsubstantial. If it had had a carriage (like in Gold City Junction), I would have got it for sure. However, the exploding wall inspired many improvised versions, without ever knowing how it was done officially, so iy helped that way. Quote
dj2005 Posted May 13, 2009 Posted May 13, 2009 At step 20 they add the roof. It is nice to get so many black hinge plates (four), and it allows for two separate sections of the roof to be lifted up alone from the other. I never knew this! Wonderful review. I don't think you missed an inch of coverage on this set. Quote
harrysnapperorgans Posted November 8, 2009 Posted November 8, 2009 One my favourite sets ever. I had one when I was about 10, (which was lost to the younger sibling during my Dark Ages) and years later brought one second hand. I'm hoping to collect all or at least most of the western sets. Quote
Milan Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 I used to watch this set in catalog, and my parents were unable to find it anywhere to buy it for me Now I can see better what have I missed! :cry_sad: Great review, thanks! Quote
Big Cam Posted November 9, 2009 Posted November 9, 2009 What a great set! I never even knew this set existed. I wish I had known about these back when they were still for sale. Great review too, the pics look great. Quote
Piterio Posted November 20, 2009 Posted November 20, 2009 This was my first "bigger" set and second in western line (after I got Sherrif showdown I knew I need a Sherrif office). It was lovely set: the safe, money hidden in table, movable roof, nice doors... and of course - an exploding wall! I enjoyed destroying it a lot. That days, lego sets were playable and fun. They used nice and easy methods, not cheat tricks like flick-fire missiles (which mostly are problematic to flick). I miss western, and in a seconds I'll start to rebuild this set :D Quote
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