Piecing It Together After the Holidays : Toys: Hobby shop customers stymied by the assembly instructions bring gifts back with desperate pleas for help.
When it comes time to separate the strong from the weak, the ultimate test comes in the days after Dec. 25.
That’s when the adventurous confront the dragon: The ominous warning that “some assembly is required.”
After nearly drowning amid the confusing instructions, many return in desperation, looking for help from the hobby shop or toy store where they bought the cursed thing. That manages to transfer their frustrations to store owners and employees, who are less than flattering about the mechanical skills of some customers.
“The first problem is that they can take a set of instructions and turn them into a set of ‘destructions,’ ” said Stefan Steinberg, owner of Classic Hobbies & Toys in Northridge.
The days after Christmas are Steinberg’s busiest. Would-be engineers bring in botched jobs, he said, like “a model airplane that was built, which didn’t even look like a plane.” But the real-life engineers cause Steinberg even more grief.
“I have the most problems with professional people, like engineers, because they tend to overbuild,” Steinberg said.
When a child has a problem putting together a model car engine, Steinberg said, the child will come in for help. “But your engineer-type will try to figure it out himself, and gets into more problems that way.”
Steinberg said that if the customer at least tries to build the model car or plane or truck, there is no charge for help. Otherwise, it will cost the customer up to $35 for a from-square-one construction job.
Instructions range from the relatively simple, like the six-page, 13-step photographed guide to building a $14.99 plastic model schooner, to the 24-page instruction manual, in four languages, that comes with a $300 motorized “monster truck” model.
Stubborn adults, said Steve Lowery, owner of the Hobby Store in Canoga Park, have returned to his store with toys put together so badly they defy recognition.
One of his customers had purchased a radio-controlled model car, and returned it to the store with a burnt-out electrical system.
“This guy was mad, and told me he makes satellites for NASA,” Lowery said.
“He said there’s no way he could mess up a basic electrical circuit, but the car was just fried.”
While some seek help from the experts at the toy stores, others just give up.
“We have had lots of problems with the ‘Barbie Folding House,’ ” explained Emicen Lopera, a salesperson at Kay Bee Toys in the Fallbrook Mall. Lopera said that four of the cardboard and plastic houses, priced at $64.99, have been returned since Dec. 26 in exchange for toys and video games that don’t require assembly. “The parents say there are too many pieces, and it’s impossible to put it together,” she said. The Barbie home, if built correctly, stands 18 inches high, 30 inches wide and 25 deep.
Steinberg blames the school system for the after-Christmas hobby construction blight.
“When I grew up, we had auto shop, wood and metal shop. Now it’s all been cut out of the school budgets, and kids don’t have a way to learn those things,” he said.
“I feel sorry for kids who don’t get hands-on experience. It’s just common-sense stuff, teaching kids how to put things together. It’s made a difference in my life. When my car breaks down, I don’t run to a mechanic. I look at it myself first.”
People want things in a hurry, which is one reason many end up needing help.
“Everybody wants to get started and play, and nobody wants to do the work of putting things together,” said Tom Gilliland, an assistant manager at Kit Kraft in Studio City.
He said one boy got a wooden plane for Christmas but was so afraid of the daunting project he asked his mother to build the hobby plane.
Gilliland said the mother returned to the store, grumbling and seeking advice, but returned home to carry on with the job.
Confusion also reigned in bicycle repair stores after the holidays.
Some failed miserably in their attempts to build a bike. Others never bothered to lift a wrench.
“Around this time of year, people open up a box and are shocked to see a bag of screws and pieces of a bicycle, “ said Frank Price, a salesman at Cycle Logical in Lancaster.
Dennis Davis, owner of the Europa Bicycle Center in Van Nuys, said he has seen handlebars inserted backward, seats turned sideways, and gear cables connected to brakes.
“I’ve even seen people put in the wheels reversed,” with the rear wheel gears in the front, Davis said with a laugh.
“I guess not everybody is mechanically inclined.”
Hobby store owner Steinberg said he has learned how to deal with the whining kids and anxious parents who want their motorized model truck built and speeding up to 40 m.p.h. right now.
But Steinberg is exasperated with “the parent who tells the kid they can’t build a model because it’s too difficult.”
“The parent says ‘no’ and the kid accepts that, and will live with that all his or her life. My parents always told me I should try,” he said.
