I finally had time to open this giraffe building blocks set I got in Hong Kong two years ago. Its dimension is width 33.8 x height 46.7 x depth 13.8 cm (or 13.3 x 18.4 x 5.4 inches).
Based on Jekca’s U.S. website, this little fellow costs $77.40. Building blocks are definitely not a cheap hobby.
In addition to the blocks and screws, the kit included an instruction manual, a screwdriver, and a screws measurement reference card. I didn’t take a photo of the blocks and screws, but they were organized in the bags by sizes.
Day 1 (6 hours) - The green base took a long time since I was getting used to the instruction manual. The first two green layers are not screwed down, so they kept falling apart when I was trying to screw the three layers together to form the base.
Day 2 (2 hours) - I didn’t realized we would be adding in screws every layer we put down. While I understand this will make the end product very secure, it means I will be spending more time screwing than building. There is also another con to screwing every layer, but I will talk about that later.
Jekca could had saved several pages of paper by not showing each layer of screws twice. They have a step to show the placements of the screw and another step to show that you are supposed to screw the screws down.
Day 3 (3.5 hours) - Following the instruction, I place all the screws on to the block before screwing them in. While screwing, some of the unscrewed screws will fall into the hole of the body…
Day 4 (5 hours) - Dang! I realized the feet should had been built with black and not brown blocks. The black is a light brown color, while the brown is more of a darker chocolate color in the instruction manual. Since black was the second color to be built after green, I didn’t think twice.
The only way to fix a mistake is to take apart every layer above the mistake. I didn’t want to do that just to fix the feet, so my husband helped me break the giraffe as close to the feet with brute force. I ended up spending two hours fixing the feet and the green base. The giraffe will now be weak around the breaking points near the feet, but I am OK with that.
Day 4 part 2 (1.25 hours) - They give a lot of extra screws because some of the screws just won’t screw securely.
After 19 hours (including the two hours to fix the feet), I am finally finished! The giraffe ended up being very cute; so of course I had to do an obligatory photo shoot.
