HURDY-GURDY - 3D Mechanical Puzzle UGEARS

I went into this after having read all these reviews, especially the bad ones, which I’ll address. I assembled it in about 8 hours, it is time consuming, but you need to take your time and be careful or you’ll screw it up. The wood is quite durable, precision laser cut, and a lot of the pieces have extras in case you meat fist it, but don’t do that. There’s sandpaper for cleaning up the edges, use it. There’s wax for lubricating pieces so they go together easier, use it. The hammer you make is a great tool, use it instead of any actual tool, it’ll keep you from breaking things. The instructions are very clear, read them carefully and they will do you well. If something isn’t going together quite right, read them again, some things look like other things occasionally. To address the bad reviews: the instruction book is complete, all steps, both strings. The step for cutting the strings says to cut it in half, string up the two strings, trim when done, do that. The instructions aren’t hieroglyphs, they’re quite good illustrations of exactly what to do, step by step. It is meant to be difficult, it’s not a child’s toy. It is a functional model, not an actual instrument. It can be tuned and played, but it is not going to sound like a real one, which would be thousands of dollars, realize what you’re buying here. You wouldn’t buy the model train and be mad when you couldn’t ride it to Cleveland. Overall, I found it fun and challenging, and it looks awesome.