Hi, I finally managed to do it. It took me a whole day. I had to restart the exercise when I almost had it as one of the clamps would move properly and I couldn't fix it myself (save the file though). Now it's done and I am proud of it. Would I be able to do it on my own next time? Hell no.
In the Shader Forge series of texturing, there's an old Bartek Skorupa video on doing a wood texture... Back when it came out, I spent hours watching it and doing it over and over again trying to figure out what he was doing, pausing every few minutes. Did I ever fully figure out everything he did in that video? No. But months later, I had something that I wanted to try and it just so happened that Skorupa's video had shown me how to do exactlly what I wanted to do. (Advances in Blender has since made that particular thing not needed... but I'm still glad I spent the time to learn what I did.)
Just becaue you can't replicate it today doesn't mean you won't be able to later... and perhaps you might find a use for something you learned in trying to do this project in another thing you're trying to do. Keep at it, and you'll get the hang of it!
