I don't usually write about Lego projects until they are finished, and I'm only about a third of the way through this one but I can already confidently say this is the hardiest thing I've every built.
What is it? - I'm not going to tell you - You can guess if you like from the shots in this. I can tell you what these pieces previously were - They were the Lego Technic Land Rover Discovery - which was also a real challenge when I built it about 8-9 months ago.
Now I'm in the re-brickable let's build something else stage. This is a alternative design made by someone else and uploaded to rebrickable. It's a monster it has 2165 pieces, The instructions are in two parts, they total over 800 steps.
And I'm 300 steps in - and I'm feeling confident.
Which is good, becuase I've tried to build this model before and failed. After spending maybe an hour and half taking apart the Land Rover, I think started on this model. I got maybe 100-150 steps in, about another hour and half and realised that I'd done something wrong, and after 10 minutes or so of looking at what I build I realised I would have to take apart a lot of it to fix it. I left it for a day, came back to it, realised I still couldn't fix it and had to concede that I wasn't going to be able to do it, so I took it all apart - Now I didn't have my Land Rover or anything else, just a pile of pieces.
I was smart enough however to organise all of those pieces it's categories, which have made this attempt at it much, much easier.
Step 1 was pretty familiar from last time and also every technic build ever
Technic build always seem to start with the most complicated bits first and if you aren't paying attention it goes wrong fast - but this time I was being extra careful, extra methodical - checking after each step that it looked right.
and after about a hour and half I figured I got further than I did last time - and it was all still working which was a very good sign
A good place for a break.
Another hundred or so steps and we come to the crucial - stick two parts together - this is when you really know if its working - thankfully this thing seems to be okay - it's still hard at this point to get a sense of what it is that I'm building and in fact it doesn't even really sit up properly
Day two and we power through another 100 odd steps and we get to step 300 (and multiple podcast episodes and my partner has built a whole other model in this time) but it's starting to take shape, I'm starting to get a sense of how it's going to work and even what it's going to look like - and the biggest thought is - Christ this thing is going to be huge.
I figure I'm about a third of the way through - so it could be a while before I finish but I'm really enjoying it so far - and I have a third of a sense of achievement.