Hamilton Gripper Heavy Duty Orchestra Stand

Good stand; problematic assembly instructions

I just got this Hamilton stand from Shar Music. It’s very nice, though the rear of the desk section—the once-presumably-parallel semicircular slotted flaps that attach to the upright post--was bent, presumably by FedEx, who clearly either took the carton's directive “Do Not Drop” to mean “Please Drop,” or simply said “I can’t live by your rules, Man!" It will work, though, and one can’t be bothered to return it for this. I do have a bone to pick with Hamilton: though I am a nominally educated person and did finally get the stand assembled, I was mildly challenged by the perfunctory soi-disant “Assembly Instructions” that accompanied the stand. The schematics are fine as far as they go, but there are two problems: the actual illustration of the back of the stand, which is arguably the most challenging part of the assembly, is minuscule. I said I was educated but I didn’t say I have good eyes. Could they not have enlarged this portion of the illustration? More to the point, it would be more than helpful (and would have saved me a half-hour of ad-hoc rummaging, squinting, and swearing) to have a simple paragraph or two explaining that one will need to have a wrench (an adjustable worked OK) and flat screwdriver at hand; and then to enumerate—simply—the sequence of steps needed to put the stand together. But, who knows, that sort of clarity may just be so last-century.