Metal Earth Eiffel Tower 3D Metal Model Kit Fascinations

God I adore these. This was my fourth Metal Earth model kit and by far the easiest! I would absolutely recommend it as a starter kit for anyone unfamiliar with these models to get an idea of what they involve, if you have the correct tools of course (needle nose pliers, duckbill pliers, flush cutters, and tweezers at the least, though this particular kit needs precision tweezers). Be sure to check the dimensions and images of these first: they are SMALL and meant to be that way! Don't blame a product because you didn't research it beforehand, although I do think Metal Earth would benefit from offering product images that reflected scale. On top of having the necessary tools, understand that these kits take TIME and a lot of patience! This particular kit was pretty easy and only requires simple bends. Below I'll detail some notes and things to keep in mind for this build.The frames around the platforms can be a little tricky to bend at a perfect 90 degree angle without warping. Use the full length of your pliers to bend the entire part straight on two opposite sides first. Then just take the other two sides real slow with the duckbill pliers and move in small increments across the entire length of the fencing. The other thing to note is that twisting the tabs to attach the pieces is incredible difficult with normal tweezers for the ones that come up between the lil fences and the tower itself; I had to use angled precision tweezers that I just happened to have from a soldering iron set. If you don't have these, I'm honest not sure how you'd get those tabs twisted. So if you don't have precision tweezers and don't want to get some, maybe go with the cable car if this is going to be your first kit.But besides those things, this set is amazing for beginners I feel! All the pieces are very large in comparison to other Metal Earth kits, and it is a very straightforward assembly process that's hard to mess up. Just remember to be super careful with your bends: you only get one, maybe two shots before the steel is bound to break. Err on the side of caution with your initial bends and adjust as necessary.

This model went together pretty quickly as it's only one sheet worth of pieces. The assembly is pretty straight forward but you MUST pay attention to the instructions even though you know (or think you know how it goes together. You have to bend the pieces the right way and line them up properly to get things to work. This may sound like common sense and it is but there is more to it. Some of the pieces can be bent so that they LOOK like they fit together but when you go to bend or twist the tabs in the slots...the tabs and slots, don't line up. You may have tab with no slot, etc. Just look ahead a bit to see if you bend the piece the way you think it should go if everything is going to line up and follow any notes or instructions where things should go. I think it was pieces six and eight if I remember right. They form a pair of legs (four legs when folded) but if you don't bend them the right way the tabs and slots won't line up when you go to complete them or assembly adjacent pieces. The other suggestion is to make SURE to follow notes when it says to put things together in a particular order (top down for example). You may think because this is such an easy model that you'll just pop pieces out and go to town putting them together. If you do that and don't pay attention to instructions like "top down" you'll soon find out WHY those notes are there. Some pieces MUST be put together in the right order and if not you won't be able to access certain tabs to bend/twist them and secure certain pieces. It will leave you with pieces you can't attach to complete the model and you'll end up having to take things apart and redo them to fix the problem. You can only bend the metal so many times before these fragile pieces WILL break so be careful. If you follow the instructions and pay attention to what your're doing it's a pretty easy and quick model to put together.

Nice easy bulding

It took me 10 minuets to build that model. It looks pretty cool it would be good for beginner.

to the person who gave this thing a 1 star rating. This thing is not at all hard to put together. You just need to be careful, patient, have good lighting and make sure you can see all the details. I love the way this looks. I'm hoping they will make one of the Rockefeller Plaza.Needle nose pliers are a MUST. I used a curved one. There are a few hints on how to put this thing together on the first try. if you screw up you will have to take it apart, bend the metal piece the other way and put it back together, so listen up.1.) Make sure the you have the Tabs/Nubs on parallel sides not adjacent, there are pieces that have two on one side and two on the other, but nothing on the other two sides. if you put that together wrong you end up with the tabs right next to each other and that won't fit anywhere.2.) before you bend the tabs in to lock them down, make sure you are bending the correct ones, you have to do one then the other, if you do it in the wrong order, the other ones will be hard to get to. example, put the very top tip piece into the square, bend the tabs, THEN place it on the tower and bend those tabs. IF you put the square on the tower, bend the tabs, you will not be able to get to tabs on the tip piece.3.) DO NOT fold in the sides of the square parts until all tabs are in and bent, it will make everything easier.4.) Lastly, for bending the tabs, I found it easier top bend them slightly from the outside, then use my curved needle nose to pinch it from both sides (hard to explain what I mean, hope you get it)