It's not hard at all, you don't have to tab anything in, and I had lots of fun.
You don't need any tools. The only hard part is that the wire thing is hard to put into Prime's back the first time. You'll have to take it off to Transform, and you can't really store it in vehicle mode. It's even cooler in my opinion to the show's gun
Side view
Here's where Shockwaves wire goes in