duckegg,I left the lid on. I was not certain if the lid has to be "tweaked" to fit properly as the place I bought it assembled and delivered. In other words, I did not want to mess it up. The lid would indeed reduce the weight considerably. My buddy held on from the back holding the hinge while I held on from the front. [through the inside as described earlier. ] First, we placed the egg on the other side of the table so it could bear most of the weight and kinda slid it into the hole. It really was not that bad. BHD BHD