Today I continued building the Santa on Sleigh gravity swing from ROKR, right where I left off yesterday, the giant gift Santa carries. There are only a few parts left now! You can read day one here.
Since I kept the room closed so the cats wouldn’t touch anything while I was working, everything stayed in the same place (miracle 
).
The first thing I built today was Santa himself. I find it so funny that when you look at him from the front, all you can really see is the white beard. Everything else disappears! I stopped painting the edges at this point because the markers I used didn’t show up well on the thicker wood. I’ll need to use different ones next time, probably like the markers the kids used at school for the wooden flower project.
Once Santa was assembled (and after confirming that his arm actually moves up and down when the gift swings!), I moved on to his sleigh. After that, I built the reindeer, and finally I got to the pendulum.
I was really surprised by its construction: it’s made of two identical parts, each holding half the weight, with a metal piece hidden inside a cavity. When you close the pendulum, everything locks in perfectly without the risk of falling out. Very clever design!
And… ta-daa! Santa and his sleigh are finished!
It’s not a particularly difficult kit overall, but there are a few tricky spots. For someone completely new to ROKR builds, some steps could be challenging. For example, when assembling the upper part of the pendulum (the section above the platform), I pushed it in so tightly that I eventually had to pull it back out. I also had a couple of beginner mistakes, like putting a piece the wrong way around and struggling more to fix it than it took to put it in wrong the first time. So yes, I don’t think this kit is easy if it’s your first one. 
But honestly, my mistakes were more because I was distracted than anything else.
Tomorrow, with better lighting, I’ll show you a video of Santa in action!
I do have a question, though: does Santa’s arm and the gift move on their own when the sleigh swings for you? Because for me, they only move when I push them manually. I thought maybe I tightened some parts too much, so I loosened a few, but it still doesn’t move automatically. I’m not even sure if it’s supposed to. Has this happened to anyone else who built it?
Can’t wait to hear your experiences, and thank you for reading!
hahaha) I’ll go for this one and I’ll let you know my own experience regarding the balancing effects! I remember 
