TL;DR:
- Original Price: $45
- Pieces: 1
- Minifigure(s): No
- Sticker Sheet: No
- Pros: Excellent info, great printing, to scale
- Cons: Almost too big (depending on available space), some unneeded sections
In a bit of a departure from my usual reviews, I wanted to cover this most excellent product that just arrived. The original version had been out of print for a while, so imagine my surprise to see version 2.0 available!
The RebrickMat from Rebrickable is clearly designed by Lego lovers for Lego lovers, and has a lot of great reference details for MOC makers. It's made of a soft neoprene that's a little bit stretchy; the back is rubberized for good grip, and the front side is soft fabric that reduces brick click sounds and keeps pieces from bouncing and rolling as much, even on a sloped worktable. Its edges are protected by several layers of stitching, much like you'd see on a pair of jeans, but seems even more durable and flexible. The greys (light and dark) used in most of the mat are different from Lego colors, and make pieces of any color stand out:
As you can see in the photo above the TL;DR: section, the mat is divided into several different areas, each dedicated to a different purpose. Starting at the top are several rectangles with the main Lego colors (quite like the palette I drew up for these illustrations). As you can see in the below photo, many of them are spot-on matches, but a few—like Sand Blue and Red—aren't quite right. That said, it's not like it's an essential part of the mat, and really just serves as a reminder of the different color names (and it makes the mat look pretty):
Another less-than-useful portion is a table containing part numbers for bricks, plates, and tiles, 1 and 2 studs wide, going from 1 to 16 studs long. I suppose it could be useful, but I tend to classify pieces by their type and not their part number. Sadly, unlike Lucy and Emmet I can't see Lego bricks with their part number overlaid.
Even more mathy is the next section, which has various gear ratios, small-to-large and reversed, for twelve different pairings. If anyone wants to build a working clock out of Lego gears, this is definitely a useful place to start!
And speaking of gears, there is also a to-scale list of the eight smallest gear sizes, along with relevant measurements (that to be honest are a bit too mathy for me to make good use of:
There's also a section that's not to scale, which provides oversized elevations of a few standard pieces (1x1 brick, 1x1 plate, lantern brick and 1x1 Technic brick), with measurements both in millimeters and plate thicknesses. This would have been a useful resource for the aforementioned illustration, and is basically what I had to do with my own measurements too. Beneath those, however, is another to-scale collection, showing the different angles of various Technic axle connectors. There is also a protractor just like from high school Geometry class.
Below the protractor are a few that I was particularly happy to see. First is the Lego version of the 3-4-5 Pythagorean triangle: four studs, five studs, and six studs. What's interesting is that the spacing of Lego studs means that you can't calculate a Pythagorean triangle as though the studs represented actual lengths (if a=4 and b=5, c = √41 = 6.4031242...); that's where the table beside the triangle is so handy, providing eight sets of three stud lengths that make for valid right triangles (this is my favorite part of the whole mat). Along the side and bottom are to-scale Technic bricks (here shown with actual bricks overlaid to prove how on-point they are) with numbers in each hole. This also shows that the grid underlaying the whole mat is the size of a 2-wide brick. As I mentioned earlier, so much of these designs are to-scale, but some allowance must be made because it is printed on a flexible medium:
The middle of the mat is taken up by a light grey build area, with a 4x46 stud grid along the bottom, which will be useful for planning out mosaics and bases, as well as measuring sticks for Technic beams, axles, and a standard brick:
The last section is one that definitely will deserve further study, showing different combinations of SNOT brackets. It also shows that a standard 1x2 brick is 3 plates tall (which most people know) and 5 plates wide (which I didn't know), provides some different measurements for stacking SNOT bricks to align to different lengths of vertical bricks, and also includes measuring sticks for the three sizes of tank treads.
And finally, as a bit of an in-situ photo, here's the mat on my drafting table...which is currently taken up by the miniature painting project I'm currently working on (for Citadel's Armies on Parade competition. As you can see, it is pretty darn huge: at 16"x32" it takes up almost the whole workspace. That said, once I put the paints away I'll definitely be laying it out for when I get back to building MOCs:
And really that comes to a big determining factor in if this is something that would be useful for you or not: apart from the insulating and friction qualities (reducing sound, bounce, and roll of pieces) this mat is really meant more for MOC builders. If you just build sets following instructions (which is fun too!), this won't be nearly as useful, with the exception of the measuring sticks for determining which length you have...but often printed instructions have measuring sticks of their own. When noodling around and building your own creations, however, having the triangle chart, the gear ratio calculations, and the SNOT measurements will be really helpful.
Plus, it looks super cool and professional, just like having a gridded cutting mat on a craft table. It could also be used as a desk mat under your keyboard and mouse, though I won't be using it that way (I don't want to wear away the printing—no matter how sturdy it is—with mouse movements!). In other words, I recommend it for pretty much anyone who builds with legs, especially MOC creators who have the table space to spare.
Score (out of 5 🧱):
- Price: 🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
- Process: N/A
- Presentation: 🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
- Play: N/A
- Pieces: N/A
- Total: 🧱🧱🧱🧱🧱
Rebrickable page: here
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