Arrow assembly
Over 400 screws, 200 bolts, 200 washers. All tiny. All sharp steel.
An Arrow owner who counted them put it best: if you have big, thick fingers, do not attempt this yourself.
It is a sheet metal kit, and it behaves like one
Arrow’s own manual carries a caution that most shed manuals do not need: some parts have sharp edges, take care handling them. Gloves and eye protection are recommended, and they are recommended because people get cut. A reviewer who built one for Bob Vila listed the risk of cutting yourself on sharp steel edges as one of the defining challenges of the kit.
The fasteners are the other half. An owner who kept count reported over four hundred sheet metal screws, two hundred bolts and two hundred washers, all of them small, and estimated he dropped each one about one and a half times. Every one of those screws goes through two pieces of thin steel that have to be held in exactly the right place.
And Arrow’s manual says something else worth reading: do not assemble in windy conditions. That is the third shed brand to name the wind, and on a sheet metal shed it is not merely inconvenient. It is a large steel sail with a sharp edge.
How long an Arrow actually takes
Owner-reported. Note the gap between the video and reality.
| Model | Time | People |
|---|---|---|
| The assembly videoArrow’s figure. | 4 hours | 2 |
| What an owner told other owners"Budget 10 hours for assembly vs 4 in video." | budget 10 hours | 2 |
| Newport 10x8Evenings. Beams and doors pre-built in the garage first. | 2 days | 1, with help at the corners |
| Classic 12x12 and upAnd more if the holes do not line up. They often do not. | a full weekend | 2 |
| Sealing it afterwardsSilicone around the edges. Not optional in Kentucky. | +2 hours | 1 |
The single most repeated complaint about this shed is that the screw holes do not line up. The single most common cause is a floor that is not level.
What goes wrong, specifically
The advertised size is bigger than the shed
This one is worth knowing before you buy. Arrow measure their sheds from OUTER ROOF EDGE TO OUTER ROOF EDGE. The base and the interior are meaningfully smaller. Arrow confirm this themselves in reply to a customer who felt misled, explaining that the dimensions are given that way for people with tight space constraints. So if you need a specific amount of room inside, do not trust the name of the product.
The corner trick, from somebody who learned it the hard way
Put ONE screw in each of the four corners first, and no more. The panel edges will bend and collapse under their own weight, so prop them up with stepladders and sawhorses while you go. Once the corners are on and supported, the owner who worked this out says the wall panels went on virtually uneventfully. Skip it and you are fighting a floppy steel box.
Hand tools only
Owners are consistent: use hand tools or you will strip the metal. A screwdriver, a nut driver, and a tape measure is genuinely the tool list. That is four hundred screws by hand, which is why an Arrow takes ten hours and not four.
Parts go missing, and the fix is the hardware store
Missing nuts and bolts come up repeatedly. One builder simply spent four dollars at the hardware store rather than wait for a factory replacement, which is the pragmatic answer, though it does mean checking the parts list before you are halfway through.
Buy the anchor kit at the same time
If you are fixing it to a concrete pad you need the pad attachment kit, and it is sold separately. Owners use Tapcon screws and run a bead of silicone around the base to keep water out. An unanchored steel shed in a Kentucky storm is not a shed, it is debris.
The floor decides the screw holes
An owner put the whole problem in one sentence: if the floor is not precisely level, you will have issues lining up all of the screw holes. Everything people hate about this shed flows from that.
A level, square pad, built to the BASE dimensions rather than the roof dimensions. Then the anchor kit, then the silicone.
Do the sub-assemblies indoors first. One owner built the ceiling beams and the doors in his garage on an evening, read the instructions properly while he was at it, and had a much better weekend for it.
Why people hand this one over
It is not that an Arrow is beyond anybody. Plenty of people build them and end up happy with the result: sturdy, weatherproof, and cheap for the space.
It is that it is four hundred small screws through sharp steel, by hand, over two days, on a pad that has to be dead level, and any one of those things going wrong turns a good shed into a bad weekend.
Arrow do run a genuinely helpful assembly support line, seven days a week. That tells you something about how often it is needed.
What an installer does
- Builds a level, square pad to the BASE dimensions, not the roof dimensions.
- Corners first, one screw each, propped, before anything else goes on.
- Drives four hundred-odd screws by hand without stripping the sheet metal.
- Wears the gloves, so nobody gets cut on the panel edges.
- Aligns the doors so they actually open and close, which is the last hurdle and the one people give up on.
- Anchors it to the pad and seals the base against water.
Get it built by someone who has built one before.
Tell us your ZIP and what you bought. Installers near you will quote you directly, and you deal with them, not with us.
Questions people ask
How long does an Arrow shed take to assemble?
The video says four hours. Owners say budget ten. A larger Classic is a full weekend, and one owner did a Newport across two days of evenings. There are over 400 sheet metal screws, 200 bolts and 200 washers, and they go in by hand.
Is an Arrow shed really 10x8 inside?
No. Arrow measure from outer roof edge to outer roof edge, and they confirm this themselves. The base and the interior are smaller. If you need a specific interior dimension, check the base measurements before ordering.
Why will my screw holes not line up?
Almost always the floor. An owner said it plainly: if the floor is not precisely level, you will have issues lining up all of the screw holes. Shimming and sliding the base afterwards rarely rescues it.
Can I use a drill?
Owners strongly advise against it. The steel is thin and a power driver strips it. Hand tools, a screwdriver and a nut driver, are the recommended kit, which is exactly why the job takes as long as it does.
Do I need gloves?
Yes, and Arrow say so in the manual. The panels are cut sheet metal and the edges are sharp enough that the safety warning is on the first page. This is the shed where people get cut.
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