My hardest was the Disney castle from 2016. A family members friend wanted me to build it for them. She gave me a couple of sets for doing it. The reason it was so hard was she wanted me to glue every piece. At the time it was the biggest set I've ever built and I had to glue it. The only one that felt like work.
I used gel superglue. I looked online to see other people have used and most of what I found was people saying (don't glue your Legos). Does Elmer's work with Legos. I didn't see anyone saying that worked. It seems like it would come apart sooner than later. Superglue did the job, it was just awful to deal with.
I built the Eifel tower too and that was the first thing that came to mind when I read your post but I wouldn’t say it was hard just tedious. I’d say the hardest would be adult sets with lots of similar colors especially brown/orange because the instructions are so hard to see.
The Mercedes W14 F1 car. I don't generally do Technic as I prefer the Botanical sets, but I'm a huge Lewis Hamilton fan and had to build this car. Some parts were incredibly fiddly and annoying. And all. the. stickers. But it looks great!
10221 Super Star Destroyer.
So much grey. And the reward for spending hours making one 1/2 meter grey shard for one side of the ship is to do the same thing again for the other side.
Lego Technic 8862 Backhoe Grader from the late 80s.
Quite a complicated Technic set with a lot of moving parts, and pneumatics, in a small space. Also it is from back when the instructions held your hands a lot less so the entire complicated set is only 28 steps.
I rebuilt it last year and getting some of the tiny cogs to work and air lines ran was fiddly in the extreme
Don't have 8862 but in a similar vein mine was 8868. So much fiddly pneumatic tubing to squeeze through the turntable! While also trying to add 30 to 50 parts in every step. I miss instructions like that!
Technic Land Rover Defender (set 42110). I’m not used to Technic sets and I missed where a connector needed to be pushed in. (I had connected it but not seen the “push it in now” arrow.)
This meant that various working parts weren’t connected and didn’t, well, work. I had to reassemble the set - paying a lot more attention to where pieces went, which way round, and what happened to them in later steps. After that everything was fine
I agree! I’ve got many large Technic sets and this by far was the most complicated and intricate of them so far!
So many gearing systems and if one is out of place or wrong way round, the whole thing needs to be disassembled and rebuilt.
The 007 car, and it was because it was my second set ever and I didn’t realize it had a mechanical component that I messed up. I was a lot more careful after that.
The NES was a little difficult for me just with track and everything but I wouldn’t say any set is truly difficult. It’s more which set has the easiest to make errors that cost the most time and frustration
I ordered the Modular Construction Site from a seller on Bricklink and it came sorted in bags by color. Not by order of the bricks, size, or shape of them. Just color. Nearly the entire set is grey or yellow. Took me a long time to sort through.
T2 VW bus. The front was chaotic as hell. Put one piece on another falls off try to do the roof front falls off. Axle comes loose has to reattach everything and apply too much pressure and it all falls apart again. Ended up just leaving the axle unattached to the steering wheel because I could get it to stay together that way.
10030 Star Destroyer. This was before numbered bags, and the pieces were scattered across several bags. There was no advance warning that I needed to make multiples of the greebling strips, so after fumbling through the bags to finish one, I learned I had to make more.
Attaching the top and bottom was an exercise in frustration. The magnets should have made it easy, but no.
Maybe not the hardest, but the eidetic was so frustrating that I nevered bothered building the Death Star II because I didn't want a twist of the experience
The Perseverance Mars rover. I built part of the front arm wrong and simply lack the strength to fix it.
It was fun! Just very difficult with all of the technic pieces.
The 1989 Batmobile, the big one.
Not really because it was hard to build, I used to have my six OG Bionicles assembly instructions memorized so I was used to working with those kinds of parts.
It was because I had decided to do it in one sitting (Obviously minus bathroom and food breaks) and it took a little over twelve hours.
And then at bag 22 I had misplaced a piece that was still in the bag and had just been stuffing them in the sets box after opening and emptying them so I had to go through all of them to find the missing piece.
UCS Millennium Falcon. Once you got to the panels on top, it was fine since they just basically sit on top. But the supporting infrastructure was tough, at least for me. Also, fitting one of those interior rooms took a minute since I had to lock it into place. Maybe I just attacked it from crappy angles. I love it though.
The Technic Lnaf Rover Defender. It was made significantly harder since it was secondhand and the seller figured it would be a good idea to sort by color. In the end I just ended up building it from one big pile of 2500 pieces.
It was a Mega Bloks for me, the USS Nimitz, a 3 - 4 foot long aircraft carrier. Probably about 25 years ago now, I think I was around 10 years old at the time.
Hardest? Bugatti Chiron 42083. By far the most technical set I’ve ever built. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if I missed a piece! Never concentrated so much on every step in a set!
Most annoying/least enjoyable? Hands down the Eiffel Tower 10307! Sooooo repetitive! Several steps of “100x” same piece! And it’s fairly flimsy till you actually finish a whole section. I also dislike how all the cross braces don’t actually connect things are often only connect in 1 or 2 corners out of 4. Looks great when done but not sure if it was worth it. If it got knocked over or fell a part in a move i probably wouldn’t fix it.
Typewriter
that’s on my To Build list. what was the part that got challenging for you?
Oh man. Basically the entire inside. It’s freaking insane haha
thanks! i’ll be alert when i get to that part.
Especially inseting all the key levers correctly.
My hardest was the Disney castle from 2016. A family members friend wanted me to build it for them. She gave me a couple of sets for doing it. The reason it was so hard was she wanted me to glue every piece. At the time it was the biggest set I've ever built and I had to glue it. The only one that felt like work.
What glue did you use? I understand the kragl fixation but confused why more dont use plain old white craft glue ("Elmer's" in the US)
I used gel superglue. I looked online to see other people have used and most of what I found was people saying (don't glue your Legos). Does Elmer's work with Legos. I didn't see anyone saying that worked. It seems like it would come apart sooner than later. Superglue did the job, it was just awful to deal with.
Sian. A bit on the slightly difficult and meticulous.
I built the Eifel tower too and that was the first thing that came to mind when I read your post but I wouldn’t say it was hard just tedious. I’d say the hardest would be adult sets with lots of similar colors especially brown/orange because the instructions are so hard to see.
I'd say either the typewriter, BMW motorcycle, Yamaha motorcycle, or the 3 1:8 scale supercars
I once bought the 75252 Imperial Star Destroyer used, so I had no bags. I don’t know how I pulled it off, but I had great help from my nephew.
[75252-1: Imperial Star Destroyer](https://brickset.com/sets/75252-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/75252-1.jpg)
Winnie the Pooh house for me, at the time I was kinda new to Lego building.
[10307-1: Eiffel Tower](https://brickset.com/sets/10307-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/10307-1.jpg)
Titanic
Not hard but tedious for sure
The Mercedes W14 F1 car. I don't generally do Technic as I prefer the Botanical sets, but I'm a huge Lewis Hamilton fan and had to build this car. Some parts were incredibly fiddly and annoying. And all. the. stickers. But it looks great!
Finished my W14 last night and agree with everything you've said! Massive Lewis Hamilton fan too 😊
Lego Notre Dame and Ornathopter..both for different reasons just not a lot of fun with respectively lots of little pieces and too much technic.
Oh no don’t say that :( Notre Dame is next on my list. Maybe I’ll swap it and Disney Castle…
Don’t worry, Notre Dame is AMAZING. Yes there are repetitive steps but you are constantly rewarded at the progress you make after every 2 bags.
10221 Super Star Destroyer. So much grey. And the reward for spending hours making one 1/2 meter grey shard for one side of the ship is to do the same thing again for the other side.
[10221-1: Super Star Destroyer](https://brickset.com/sets/10221-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/10221-1.jpg)
Maybe not hardest, but most ANNOYING was the cherry blossum set. Before they changed it
The Polaroid camera was annoying, but I wouldn’t say hard
Stranger Things Upside Down 75810 Getting the 2 halves to pair. Never again.
I had 3 disasters before I finally got it, it was the first set I almost glued together
[75810-1: The Upside Down](https://brickset.com/sets/75810-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/75810-1.jpg)
Lego Technic 8862 Backhoe Grader from the late 80s. Quite a complicated Technic set with a lot of moving parts, and pneumatics, in a small space. Also it is from back when the instructions held your hands a lot less so the entire complicated set is only 28 steps. I rebuilt it last year and getting some of the tiny cogs to work and air lines ran was fiddly in the extreme
Don't have 8862 but in a similar vein mine was 8868. So much fiddly pneumatic tubing to squeeze through the turntable! While also trying to add 30 to 50 parts in every step. I miss instructions like that!
[8862-1: Backhoe Grader](https://brickset.com/sets/8862-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/8862-1.jpg) [8868-1: Air Tech Claw Rig](https://brickset.com/sets/8868-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/8868-1.jpg)
[8862-1: Backhoe Grader](https://brickset.com/sets/8862-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/8862-1.jpg)
Typewriter and Bonsai Tree
Technic Land Rover Defender (set 42110). I’m not used to Technic sets and I missed where a connector needed to be pushed in. (I had connected it but not seen the “push it in now” arrow.) This meant that various working parts weren’t connected and didn’t, well, work. I had to reassemble the set - paying a lot more attention to where pieces went, which way round, and what happened to them in later steps. After that everything was fine
[42110-1: Land Rover Defender](https://brickset.com/sets/42110-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/42110-1.jpg)
I agree! I’ve got many large Technic sets and this by far was the most complicated and intricate of them so far! So many gearing systems and if one is out of place or wrong way round, the whole thing needs to be disassembled and rebuilt.
The bonsai tree. It was fiddly and occasionally really frustrating but such a cool build
The 007 car, and it was because it was my second set ever and I didn’t realize it had a mechanical component that I messed up. I was a lot more careful after that.
The NES was a little difficult for me just with track and everything but I wouldn’t say any set is truly difficult. It’s more which set has the easiest to make errors that cost the most time and frustration
I ordered the Modular Construction Site from a seller on Bricklink and it came sorted in bags by color. Not by order of the bricks, size, or shape of them. Just color. Nearly the entire set is grey or yellow. Took me a long time to sort through.
T2 VW bus. The front was chaotic as hell. Put one piece on another falls off try to do the roof front falls off. Axle comes loose has to reattach everything and apply too much pressure and it all falls apart again. Ended up just leaving the axle unattached to the steering wheel because I could get it to stay together that way.
10030 Star Destroyer. This was before numbered bags, and the pieces were scattered across several bags. There was no advance warning that I needed to make multiples of the greebling strips, so after fumbling through the bags to finish one, I learned I had to make more. Attaching the top and bottom was an exercise in frustration. The magnets should have made it easy, but no. Maybe not the hardest, but the eidetic was so frustrating that I nevered bothered building the Death Star II because I didn't want a twist of the experience
[10030-1: Imperial Star Destroyer](https://brickset.com/sets/10030-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/10030-1.jpg)
The Perseverance Mars rover. I built part of the front arm wrong and simply lack the strength to fix it. It was fun! Just very difficult with all of the technic pieces.
10030. Fuck that thing.
[10030-1: Imperial Star Destroyer](https://brickset.com/sets/10030-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/10030-1.jpg)
The 1989 Batmobile, the big one. Not really because it was hard to build, I used to have my six OG Bionicles assembly instructions memorized so I was used to working with those kinds of parts. It was because I had decided to do it in one sitting (Obviously minus bathroom and food breaks) and it took a little over twelve hours. And then at bag 22 I had misplaced a piece that was still in the bag and had just been stuffing them in the sets box after opening and emptying them so I had to go through all of them to find the missing piece.
UCS Millennium Falcon. Once you got to the panels on top, it was fine since they just basically sit on top. But the supporting infrastructure was tough, at least for me. Also, fitting one of those interior rooms took a minute since I had to lock it into place. Maybe I just attacked it from crappy angles. I love it though.
They are never hard,, they have a manuel... Dafu? :)
I see you haven't built flagship Technic pneumatics sets from the late 80s/early 90s.
A big technic helicopter The instructions were wrong, and I was drunk.
The Technic Lnaf Rover Defender. It was made significantly harder since it was secondhand and the seller figured it would be a good idea to sort by color. In the end I just ended up building it from one big pile of 2500 pieces.
The Bugatti Chiron and the orange Porsche. After more than 30 years reading instructions I still managed to mess up some steps.
The bat tumbler from batman it's huge and everything is black
At the moment Notre-Dame de Paris. On bag 10 of 34.
Mine is 42083: Bugatti Chiron. But for me there is no such thing as an too hard to build LEGO-set
[42083-1: Bugatti Chiron](https://brickset.com/sets/42083-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/42083-1.jpg)
It was a Mega Bloks for me, the USS Nimitz, a 3 - 4 foot long aircraft carrier. Probably about 25 years ago now, I think I was around 10 years old at the time.
76269 Avengers Tower. So many windows
[76269-1: Avengers Tower](https://brickset.com/sets/76269-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/76269-1.jpg)
Hardest? Bugatti Chiron 42083. By far the most technical set I’ve ever built. I can’t imagine how hard it would be if I missed a piece! Never concentrated so much on every step in a set! Most annoying/least enjoyable? Hands down the Eiffel Tower 10307! Sooooo repetitive! Several steps of “100x” same piece! And it’s fairly flimsy till you actually finish a whole section. I also dislike how all the cross braces don’t actually connect things are often only connect in 1 or 2 corners out of 4. Looks great when done but not sure if it was worth it. If it got knocked over or fell a part in a move i probably wouldn’t fix it.
[42083-1: Bugatti Chiron](https://brickset.com/sets/42083-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/42083-1.jpg) [10307-1: Eiffel Tower](https://brickset.com/sets/10307-1) [[Photo]](https://images.brickset.com/sets/images/10307-1.jpg)