With well over 6500 STEPCRAFT systems sold around the world, there stands to reason that a small percentage of customer might have some trouble.  The instructions are very well thought out for any level of builder, but still, you MUST follow them step by step.  Additionally we produced a Assembly Training Course that is a video tutorial outlining every step in the manual. Between the manual and videos, the average customer should not have any trouble.
We find that many customers who you are reading about either do not have the skill set to understand basic assembly terminology or are skipping steps in the assembly process.  Many times a quick call to our support team has the customer up and running quickly.
There are no special tools or skills required to assemble a STEPCRAFT kit, but if you are the type of person who "skims" through manuals and are not detail oriented when assembling something, then you might have the same issues that some people post about.   While it is not a hard build, there are a few items that you must pay attention to due to the precise nature of the machine.
If you take your time and follow the steps in the videos and manual, you will not have any problems building your STEPCRAFT CNC.