Review: Build Bonanza Tape

Ok, this week’s review has been a LONG time coming. I don’t know if anyone pays that close attention to what pictures I post and when… But, there is usually a big gap between when I buy a set, and when I review it. The simple reason is that I unfortunately can’t quit my day job to just build LEGO® (though that would be AWESOME), and work gets in the way of play more than it should. To get back on point, this week I am reviewing Build Bonanza LEGO® compatible tape. I got this as a gift for Christmas last year…

Why has it taken me so long to review this product? Well, until recently, I lived in a tiny condo. I didn’t have much room for my LEGO® stuff… my LEGO® city actually occupied my in-laws’ basement. My wife and I recently moved, and now my LEGO® has a place at home. My basement also has wooden trim all along the perimeter that is conveniently wide enough to serve as Minifigure shelving. So, I now have somewhere to use my tape!

First things first, this is not an actual LEGO® product. It is technically a fLEGO product. However, I don’t take the same offense to this tape as I do to most other fake LEGO® stuff. The reason for this is that LEGO® has not produced anything similar, and I actually think this is a pretty good idea. There are a variety of different brands of this stuff out there, and I have not tried any of them except this one. But, so far, I quite like this product.

I didn’t buy this tape, but prior to getting some gifted, I was thinking about it. I wanted a way to display a lot of Minifigures without a million little plates that typically come with the collectible characters. For that purpose, this tape is amazing. When you place the Minifigures on, you can feel that the same clutch power of a baseplate is just not there. But, if the Minifigs are just going to stand there on display, who cares? So, for my purposes this product is great.

But, what if you want to do more with this tape than just display? Well, I conducted a few tests to see how it holds up. The first was that I stuck some to my ceiling, and I placed a whole bunch of Minifigures on it upside down. They stayed pretty well. I even left them there over night, and all were still stuck to the ceiling the next morning, and even 24 hours later. I removed the tape, and it did not peel off the paint on the wall. True to the package, the tape was also still sticky, and stuck easily to another surface. Now, I imagine that the more you peel and re-stick it, the less sticky it will become. But, I don’t plan to move it around much. Moving it a lot will also increase the likelihood of dust and grime sticking to the adhesive, which will also make it less sticky. So, even though it says you can re-stick it, I would avoid that personally.

I also decided to test how much LEGO® you could actually place on a fresh piece of this tape. But, to really test the clutch power, I decided to build down from the ceiling. The picture above shows ninety 2×4 bricks hanging from the tape which I stuck to the ceiling. I got up to 92 bricks before the whole thing disconnected from the tape and fell to the floor. I will note that the tape did not peel from the ceiling under that weight. But, the rubber studs on the tape could no longer clutch the mass of the LEGO® bricks. I did a similar test using a standard LEGO® baseplate. I reached 200 bricks, and there was no sign of them falling off any time soon, so I gave up.

In summary, Build Bonanza tape has no where near the same clutch power as actual LEGO®. However, being able to hold on to 92 bricks upside down is still not that bad for most casual building and play purposes. Using the whole strip of tape, or even multiple strips, you could get quite a structure going. For my purpose of displaying Minifigures, this is an awesome invention. I will probably buy more. Do you have experience with LEGO® compatible tape? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

Until next time,

-Tom

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