What is the hardest Lego set you have ever built?

[Zorbas]

No you're right, there is video from that event here. But it's not showing me when I'm blind building, that's another guy.

Ooops...you're right.

At least I got the event and the set right.

Now do the Fire Brigade in that way!

[blueandwhite]

The UCS Falcon...after an unfortunate accident where she was half-destroyed. Building it from scratch was easy; reassembling the partially-built Falcon was a genuine challenge! It required me to scour through the instructions carefully looking to discern where each element needed to be placed.

[drdavewatford]

I also vote for the UCS Falcon, but only because there are so many pieces that even after sorting them it can be hard to find the right one (I'm in the middle of building it at present).

10030 UCS Imperial Star Destroyer posed similar problems with regards to finding the right pieces. It's also quite fragile, and installing the 4 huge sections which make up the top surface and underside using just magnets can be tricky.

Finally, I managed to build Emerald Night without too many problems BUT it then got dropped on the floor and badly damaged. It was a real challenge to repair without breaking it up and almost going back to the beginning, although I fixed it eventually.

Dr. D.

[Jippon]

Of all time: The 10030 UCS Imperial Star Destroyer... damn that thing was hard. The fact that is was held together by magnets didn't help either .

Still, a very interesting build with a jaw dropping result .

Recently: The medieval market village, not necessarily hard, but the fact that it's quite unsturdy made one of the two builings collapse when I was putting the roof bits on.

[allanp]

Took a bit of figuring out to remember, but in step 15 (page 13) the two grey 1x10 technic bricks are inserted after the surfaces on which the steering rails slide, thus the position is blocked both by the axles which should be inserted in the 1x10's and the 1x4 bricks which provide the surfaces (The axle heads nearly hit/come level with the 1x4 bricks). Because both axles are sitting in axle connectors, they can't be slided away either. The solution was naturally simple, just take off the 1x4's and insert the 1x10's, but the building order in the instructions is clearly flawed here.

Oh I see. I found the axles on which the beams slide into have enough flex to bend upwards enough to allow you to place the beams without removing any pieces, I guess this is what people meant by having to bend pieces. I didn't find it a ploblem, forgot about it by the end of step 16 but it could have been done in a better order.

[Rufus]

I would say the 8002 Destroyer Droid. The instructions are actually wrong in many places and the set came with a separate correction manual with about 12 pages. The mechanism is very unusual and several people on Brickset have had trouble building it, especially since it relies on the careful placement of many rubber bands. Unlike most Technic sets, you don't get a good feel for how it's supposed to work until the model is nearly finished.

I'm with you on this. I cut my baby teeth on Technic; I had a bit of trouble with the gearbox on 8860, but I was only 8. The destroyer droid was far more complicated than anything else I'd built, and stil is today.

The first time I built the motorised AT-AT was fine, but then when I moved house I took the legs of without disassembling the whole model... when I put them back on, and tried to make it walk, it fell over! It was quite hilarious to see, I wish I'd made a video. I had to strip it right down to a point I could match to the instructions and build it from there.

[Edmond Dantes]

The hardest was last week when I built The Emerald Night. Of course, I was building it while watching the Vikings shoot themselves in the foot time and again versus the Saints. That didn't help at ALL.

[Luke McAwesome]

The UCS Y-Wing. My biggest set to date. And I hope that I never get one any bigger, because that was one scary build.

[Big Cam]

The Imperial Star Destroyer, 6211

Only becasue this was one of the first sets I built after getting back into LEGO, and there was a lot of technic stuff, adn large pieces with small instructions.

[Ronan Dragonov]

Back in spring '97 I worked late into the night on the submarine alternate model of the 8480 [Technic] Space Shuttle. I don't think I ever put so much effort into an official build. I got something wrong because the bow doors never opened right and I just gave up on figuring out why. I later built the Space Shuttle - fully functional - a couple of times and it never seemed as difficult.

[Daniel Williams]

My hardset Lego set is the Green Grocer because it took me two days w/ some breaktime

[bamaker]

None of the sets I've put together I would call difficult, but some required a lot more attention than others. Of course, I've still got a Death Star, Cafe Corner, and Green Grocer waiting to be put together some day. But to answer the OP question, I'd have to say it's either 8635 Mobile Command Center, 10144 Sandcrawler (treads, treads, and more treads), or 10178 Motorized Walking AT-AT.

The Mobile Command Center is the only one I had to deconstruct half-way through because I'd made some mistakes. The Sandcrawler just tried my patience. And the AT-AT was probably my slowest build because I double-checked and triple-checked what I was building every step of the way.

[The Eye]

Darth Vader`s UCS Tie Fighter, at 8 hours, when I was 13.

[GI blockage]

8455 Back Hoe stands alone in my mind. A 'must build'.

But 8865 would be the most physically challenging set. Once those old-school pieces get put together, they stay together.

[JayDuck]

I'd have to echo the UCS X-Wing. There's nothing really 'hard' about the build, it's pretty straightforward. Others mentioned that it was pre-numbered bags, but that doesn't bug me, even with the numbered bags I just dump them all in a pile. My big complaint would be the repetition; building the four wings got to be really tedious.

Of course, the fact that I put it together while recovering from a pinched nerve in my back so I was building between bouts of pain may have influenced my opinion on this.

[B-Lister]

6237. For some reason Lego decided not to include instructions!:

Y'know, you may be kidding here, but it took me a while to figure out how that leaf attached to the headlight piece the first time.

and I was one of the smart kids!

[diehardfan@4]

I bought this Lego Education - Space and Airport Set for my 5 yr old who is a die hard fan of Lego. Now not sure how to get started. There are no instructions at all. Can someone please help ? Would really appreciate the help !!

[Modulex Guy]

I bought this Lego Education - Space and Airport Set for my 5 yr old who is a die hard fan of Lego. Now not sure how to get started. There are no instructions at all. Can someone please help ? Would really appreciate the help !!

Like I had mentioned in your other post, the LEGO Education sets do NOT come with instructions, they are sets for classrooms and are meant for kids to use with their imaginations and teachers to use as class aids.

[diehardfan@4]

I understand.. The instruction cards are basically there to get the kids started and then build up from there. I got the space and airport set which has legit pieces( except these are all jumbled up like the one I got for LEGO creator ) and was hoping to see if anyone here has bought this set and built something out from here..

[RohanBeckett]

A few people said the 8455 was hard...

here's a video of me building it! :-)

Building the 8455 Backhoe

only 3 hours!

RB

[bricklady]

A lot of technic sets, especially one of those big Technic car chassis (8860, I think). The amount of time I spent fiddling with the engine, to make it work properly.

But the worst of the worst was an Idea book (8888) creation. The incredible remote control 4.5V walking dog. The pictures just gave hints. My fingers are still bleeding from pulling out cogs, axles and pins over and over again.

Edited March 28, 2010 by bricklady

[CP5670]

A lot of technic sets, especially one of those big Technic car chassis (8860, I think). The amount of time I spent fiddling with the engine, to make it work properly.

But the worst of the worst was an Idea book (8888) creation. The incredible remote control 4.5V walking dog. The pictures just gave hints. My fingers are still bleeding from pulling out cogs, axles and pins over and over again.

I built that model in this thread and found it pretty straightforward. I thought the clock was the hardest model there, which also has more of a collection of hints than full instructions. The pictures don't show all the mechanisms clearly and you have to make guesses on it in a few places.

Edited March 28, 2010 by CP5670

[Karto]

The 8880 Super Car is not an easy one to build, but I find it harder to unbuild... especially the wheel-suspension structures.

[Thee Pirate]

Most difficult set - UCS Millennium Falcon. It took me 4 or 5 hours of sorting pieces before I even got started, then it took me a month and a half of building on my spare time to get it assembled. After I got to putting together body panels, I finally started seeing progress.

Most frustrating - inbag assembly of X-Wing Fighter 30051

[Sid]

Most frustrating - inbag assembly of X-Wing Fighter 30051

That's cool, how long did it take? I don't think I'd have the patience to do that. Unless I was in a plane and had nothing else to do.

Anyway, like others have said, I haven't found any set particularly hard to build, and I've built a lot from Technic to System.

The one that did take me the longest to build was the 10030 UCS Star Destroyer at 18 hours. This was back in 2002 when I was 15.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Sid