Taking a deep dive into a new brand: JEKCA. We took quite a journey building a veritable sculpture out of this new brick system and we would like to bring you along for the ride!

You might have seen this charismatic cat out and about at the store or the Wine and Craft Festival.

We would like you to meet Hobbes McChonkington, the Maine Coon Cat made out of more than 7,720 bricks (shamelessly calling it 8,000 for simplicity).

He loves to travel. That might be a scary thought for anyone that has constructed a large building brick set before! But the unique JEKCA engineering system means he can be moved around without fear of losing bricks!

This 3573 piece COBI model of the Japanese aircraft carrier, IJN Akagi, had to be handled with care and carried inside a box in case any small pieces decided to escape (this beautiful model was built by one of our amazing patrons!).

Meanwhile, Hobbes was able to travel without a harness in the front seat.

He's not glued together. And he's not LEGO - though he does sport the classic LEGO look.

These are huge builds.

100 studs (31.5 in/80cm) is a significant landmark in the land of LEGO and other compatible bricks.

That is the number to reach to become a true SHIP - a "Significantly High Investment in Parts".

The Akagi is 34.3 inches long. It's a SHIP alright.
COBI is 1:1 compatible with LEGO

JEKCA is not.
JEKCA is a bit smaller. Hobbes comes in at 28 in / 71 cm. And he's exactly 100 studs long.
Hobbes isn't just a SHIP - he's a stud. This life size Maine Coon cat is sturdy!

Why?
JEKCA is built with hollow studs and is designed with 'screws'.
This is likely a bad translation as they aren't threaded. They are quarter turn pins (shoutout to the hardware store workers who know what I'm talking about!).

Easy to insert and turn 90 degrees to fasten a layer of bricks with intense satisfaction!

Each JEKCA set includes a small flathead screwdriver that anyone who has worn glasses will recognize.

Also included is a Sculptor card in case you've got a lot of different sized pins.
A size two goes through 2 bricks. Size 3, three bricks. All the way up to 6 bricks deep.

Check out that part list! 6,879 black pins.
Yeah, there are over 10,000 pins in this model. This is why I have no qualms saying Hobbes is made up of more than 8,000 pieces!

Notice that the biggest piece is 2x6. This is what gives that unique LEGO look - because it only uses 'boilerplate' pieces. Compare the 2x6 JECKA brick to a 2x6 LEGO plate (flat brick)

JECKA keeps it simple. Their entire catalog of builds is made out of only 21 different types of building elements.
That keeps prices low and keeps an authentic brick look.

The manual is 21 pages. Not glossy, but nicely color coded.
There were 3 versions of the Maine Coon cat, three different color codes. Hobbes is Model 3.
Like IKEA, there is a one-size-fits-all manual.
And, like IKEA, there is a learning curve to that manual. But once you get it, it's pretty simple.

For JEKCA, lay out layer one, then layer two, then put the pins in a checkerboard manner, tighten. Move on to next layer, alternate checkerboard, repeat.

Before long, you have a cat paw. Then a leg. Then another leg. As you can see our cats were very helpful in supervising the build process.

You can see how stable this build is. With just three legs it could stand unsupported on its own, and be held without fear above a cat.

Couldn't imagine doing something similar with LEGO.

You'll note the build is hollow. Another testament to how well this brick and pin combination holds up.
Also, a great way to keep the price point low! This set ran around $0.04 cents a brick.
For comparison, since 2022, LEGO is around $0.11-$0.14 per brick.

I made a mistake here. The instructions said switch to white.
But I wasn't reading the instructions by this point, I was using the color coding, and didn't notice the shading difference.

Fortunately it was easy to disassemble. Unfortunately, it was so easy I didn't think to take a picture of it until after I'd already fixed the error.

By this time, our tortoise shell manx was wanting to hop into the model like a mech suit!

Something really neat about these builds is you are given the option of choosing the color of the eyes, and nose, if you so fancy.

You could choose yellow, green, black, or blue!

Took a break here to do a test comparison against LEGO.

Since the biggest, sturdiest, JECKA piece was a 2x6 I used LEGO 2x6 plates to compare.

They were attached by overlaying one stud, so that two 2x6 plates attached to each other would be 11 studs long.

I was able to attach 9 LEGO 2x6 plates together (46 studs in length pictured in red above) and could give a gentle wiggle without it falling apart.

10 2x6 plates was an immediate breaking point.

Using the same metric on JEKCA three 2x6 plates (16 studs in length) was as far as could hold a gentle wiggle.

Big difference.

BUT WAIT! What if we use JEKCA pins like we're supposed to?

I was able to get twenty six (26!) 2x6 plates (131 studs!) together without breaking when wiggled.

Definitely a bow. Definitely not a break.

Even at a smaller size than LEGO bricks, these 26 JEKCA bricks were more than double the length of the 9 LEGO plates and held much better.

Why 26?
... by this point in the build that was all the 2x6 bricks I had left without taking them from Hobbes.

I didn't realize how far along in the build I was. And safe to say it greatly passed the bench mark.

Making a brick model that is >100 studs long with 26 bricks that holds together at this scale is insane. And this is just using 1 pin per connection.

That puts JEKCA in a stellar ranking as far as building mediums go!

JEKCA was also not stingy with the pieces. There were plenty of extras left over! Feel free to come give them a test build at the store!

We look forward to carrying more models moving forward!

May Deals

10% off all Bumpas!

Upcoming in June:
10% off all water balloon and pool toys!

Wishing you a lifetime of play!

~Hannah and Bret

Did you hear about the LEGO sale?
People were lined up for blocks.

I lost my whole Lord of the Rings LEGO collection.
No I'm Legoless.

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Play Favorites 441 South St Front Royal, VA 22630-2115 USA

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