GlenBricker's Review: Cuusoo Parts Review

One of the stated purposes of Cuusoo is to allow for the creation of new Lego parts. These projects unfortunately tend to get buried under the MOCs.

With these reviews I will be attempting to showcase the parts of Cuusoo and see if we can't drum up support. Qualities I will be reviewing are the usability of the part, its aesthetic qualities, and its "replacability" (the ability to "make" the part using existing elements). If nothing else this article will serve as a convenient location to browse the Cuusoo's parts projects.

If you would like me to post your part, please add the tag "part-review" to your part. Creating this new tag will also help to showcase the parts available on Cuusoo. I will hesitate to post part projects here that catalog a very wide and unrelated assortment of parts in a single project. When two people have an identical part I will preference the project with the lower cuusoo project ID.

The Parts:

Clip elements on 1 x 1 round plates with through holes

Full disclosure, this one is my pet project. The idea here is to expand on the series of 1x 1 plate with some form of clip by replacing the 1 x 1 plate with a 1x1 round with hole.

This would work very well for mini-builds and off-angle design. The 1x1 square plate locks you into 90 degree angles but with a round plate you can vary the orientation.

With the addition of a through hole, you can mount the pieces to any standard Lego rod. These parts offer a high utility and, with the through hole, provide building options that have not previously been available.

Half Plates

These are, as the name implies, plates of half the thickness of regular plates. They have holes instead of studs. The effect of placing one of these on a brick would be like putting a tile on but without adding any height.

The part concept does allow for some interesting snotting. This would also expand on the dimensions of Lego parts as there is, to my knowledge, no production part at the 1/2 plate width.

The aesthetic would certainly be novel as you could see the studs still, they would just be flush. I am really on the fence about these parts but they certainly would have their uses.

Beyond aesthetics though they would serve a purpose similar to the thin lift arm technic part. The project has some great examples of how snotting would work with them so I don't have to go into detail here. Check it out and see what you think.

New Plates and Tiles for Corners

The parts in this project seem like a no-brianer. Most brick elements can be found in a plate equivalent, but this is generally not the case with curves. I have always been a little surprised that these parts do not exist in the base Catalog.

The designs presented do however require a few more "stud cuttouts" or they will only be usable on curved pieces. That is to say, that a normal stud placement would interfere with interconnecting the parts.

I like these parts but their addition to the Lego catalog would mostly be an aesthetic one rather than a functional one.

Other parts on Cuusoo that I will be reviewing:

New Parts design for SNOT 2-sided stud (+inv)(+stud only for Brick-Plate, B-B, P-P)