 I have no idea if this is going to be great or if it's going to be a complete shambles. Hey guys, so we got something a little different going on in this video. And I did mention in my last video that I was trying to decide what puzzle to do next and I did say it probably wasn't going to necessarily be a flat jigsaw puzzle. So I was contacted by a company and they asked me if I was interested in some puzzles and I was like, uh, yes. I was lucky enough to receive not one, but three 3D puzzles of my choice. Hit the like button if you are a fan of 3D puzzles and let me know down below what kind of sets have you done and from what brands. I've always found 3D puzzling quite intimidating, which is probably why I've never actually picked one up. I have no idea if this is going to be great or if it's going to be a complete shambles. They have always intrigued me. So I'm really excited to be finally exploring this realm of puzzling. So in today's video, I'm going to be sharing with you one of the three puzzles that were sent to me and it's super exciting because this 3D puzzle model or set, I think it's a model you would call it. Well, it's a model of a place that I really, really want to visit one day. So the first set in our 3D puzzling series is Neuschwanstein Castle. I hope I said that right. Our Neuschwanstein Castle 3D puzzle set is from the company Cubic Fun and they are known as the leading innovator of 3D puzzling. This is 128 pieces. It is 17.1 by 8.4 by 14.9 inches when it's completed. The box has quite a bit of information on it. It says on the front here, well, it kind of shows its difficulty level, which is six out of seven stars. So yeah, this is going to be interesting. It is made of paper and EPS foam board. And this particular set uses LED lighting, which is going to be super cool. So it looks like it's going to require two AA batteries, which is not included in the set. On the bottom here also states that it is easy to assemble. There are no scissors required. There's no gluing and it takes more than four hours to construct, though probably in my case it may be more like four weeks. But we'll see, right? And on the back of the box it talks a little bit about Neuschwanstein Castle. There's also what looks to be a little step-by-step diagram as to what you're supposed to do in order to complete this set. And then on the bottom you have other products from the series. This is super exciting. I mean, come on. This is Neuschwanstein Castle. This is the castle that Walt Disney based the Disney Park castles on. But aside from that, I mean, come on, who wouldn't want to live in a castle? The fact that this set actually has LED lighting just brings this entire thing to life. Now you know out of all the places that I've mentioned and all my puzzle sets that I have a house, that's my house, I'm going to tell you the truth. You know this is actually my house. And you know this because I left all the lights on. I'm not very good about saving electricity. There's just so many rooms in my house. I just kind of forget, you know, to turn them off as I leave to go to the next one. That one's actually my bedroom. I did remember to turn that off. It's a great view when I wake up in the morning of the sunrise. But you know, this place is big. It's very dark so I got to leave some of the lights on, you know? As I, you know, walk my way down the squirt yard area where I have my tree. That's where I go and sit and have my cup of coffee sometimes. And then I'm just admiring the view. If you ever want to come and visit me, just let me know. I have plenty of rooms. But anyways, aside from that, first impressions. I mean, it says that it's going to be more than four hours to construct. As I said before, for me, probably four weeks. But I hope not because I want to get some other puzzles done. Again, I've never done a 3D puzzle before. So I'm not really sure how to go about this. I'm looking at the back again here and it looks like all the pieces are in sheets. It kind of seems like it's going to be pretty straightforward looking at this last diagram picture here. But then again, we don't know. I might forget how to use my hands midway and this might completely collapse on me. I don't know. This is going to be so fun to try. And if you are thinking about getting one of these 3D puzzle sets from CubicFun, I'm going to leave a link down below of the website that you can click on, which is their Amazon store. And there's also going to be next to it a promo code that you can use for a discount. So you can, you know, try one of these out and see if you like it. I'm going to stop talking now. Let's open this up and let's see what we're going to get ourselves into here. All right, let's get this one started. Now, it does have clear plastic wrap on it. So let's get that out. Comes with a hole puncher. I guess that's to knock out little bits out of the puzzle pieces. This comes right out. There you go. All right, cool tool. We have the LED kit here. Well, this is the battery pack and here are the little lights. Then we have a booklet here on Neuschwanstein Castle. Oh my God, look at that view. Yeah, that's definitely my permanent house. I like how the booklet has a lot of little fun facts as well kind of just scattered about. Then it has a bit here about how to assemble. It's pretty straightforward and then information on the battery pack and pretty much the step by step that you have to follow here in terms of using the LED lights and the actual puzzle pieces themselves. My God, I'm going to be honest. This looks a little intimidating here. I'll definitely be giving feedback on how easy these instructions are to follow. All right, so that's the pamphlet. Oh, basically we have all the foam boards, plastic wrap together and these are your puzzle pieces. Let's open these up. Wow. Check this out. Oh, those are the bits for the spires that you have to fold up. This is more, this is basically the paper part of the puzzle, but the rest of it looks to be the thick foam boards. That's two pieces, I think. No, that's one piece. All right. So let's pull this out and check it out. So that's about the thickness of the puzzle board. You can see there. Pretty sturdy, not incredibly hard, but this is pretty strong. This is going to stand up pretty well. Oh, wait, that was two pieces. How does this? Oh, it opens up. Look at that. Oh, that's the backside. Okay. I'm seeing, I'm seeing now what this is. All right. So all the pieces have next to them a number to follow so that you know, you know, basically what you're grabbing here. Now I'm not going to pop all of these out because I want to make sure I'm following the instructions because we got quite a number. There's 128 pieces here, so we don't want to confuse any of these or mess these up until we are ready to put this bed together. Look at that. Oh, this is fun. This is the, those are all the tree bits there. S-S-Z-A-R-I-N-T-A-R-E-S-S-O-N-T. I'm not going to lie. I'm a little scared, but it's going to be fun. This is a new experience. Don't be afraid to try new things, guys. I don't know about you. I would say I'm ready, but I don't know if I am ready. All right. Let's do this. So before you start getting too excited and try to just jump right into throwing pieces together, read the assembly step by step instructions and follow it in that order. And I stress this because I realized during my time completing this set that it just kept me organized and it is something really that is key when completing a 3D puzzle, especially for a first timer like me. So first we have to remove the parts following the instructions for each step and do not remove the other parts. And again, that is key to keeping yourself organized. Now each piece has a number printed right next to it. And for just about all of them, if you look on the back side of the same piece, it also has the number printed in case you just get confused as to what's what. Next you are going to punch all the interlocking holes before assembly. And that's when we'll use our little handy-dandy hole puncher that they provided us. Next you are going to fold the parts before inserting. And finally you are going to insert the parts and make sure that they are securely in place. And that is when the real magic happens. Alright, now I'm going to be honest. As this was my first 3D puzzle video, I really struggled to figure out the best camera angles so hopefully you can see enough to get an idea of the process. I'm sure after going through this one, I'll definitely have a better idea on how to go about it next time. Now let me know if you have any particular questions regarding the overall completion process that I failed to mention throughout the video. Again, this is all new to me so I really want to make sure that I'm giving you enough info on 3D puzzles in general for the next one. Alright, now a couple of things that I came across or noticed along the way. Number one, the hole punching can be quite time consuming. And it's not really an issue, but I mean there is seriously a lot of punching involved. And it does tend to leave quite a pile of garbage so just beware if you don't notice if you're dropping some little pieces on the floor of little household pets that like to vacuum your floors. Now patience is really important for this. And you have to think how you're going to approach each section as best you can. Now there were times where I would pop one side in a section but the other side would pop out and I'm not sure if that has to do with my folding technique which may have been wrong or if the piece itself was too small for the space. And this was more for the rock work area. It was probably my fault. But I struggled at times trying to figure out which direction to fold certain pieces in. I had several casualties but I was able to repair them with a little bit of tape. Maybe it was the small pieces that were pretty delicate and the image print on it could tear if you folded it the wrong way or if you were too rough. You know me sometimes that could be a persistent beast and you know kind of ruin my pieces. But anyways I mainly noticed this on the pointy spire pieces. It was really hard getting some of the little turrets in place just trying to keep them from falling off the actual building and it was a little frustrating at times but I got through it. There were three parts of the puzzle that were actually kind of like a paper material and those were the larger spire roof pieces. It took me about three times to get the first one right and of course I tore it the first time but again I repaired it with tape so it was fine in the end. After the last one it was fine. I have to be honest there were quite a few moments where nice words were not coming out of my mouth mainly just out of frustration because I kept damaging my pieces and I didn't want to. But in the end I made the repairs I needed to with some tape and I got it done. Now the installation of the LED lights wasn't difficult but I did wish that the wires were just a slight bit longer. It felt a little too tight for my liking at times and I was afraid that I was going to damage the wires or some things. Now in terms of installing the battery pack I didn't really know when I was meant to connect it to the wiring. The instructions did show this step pretty much at the end of the booklet which was basically after you completed the entire puzzle. But really I kind of feel like this is something that could and should be done probably midway through your completion process and I'm talking about once you get pretty much most of the base done and the reason I say that is because you won't have to risk damaging your entire castle by laying it down to connect the battery pack to the wires. Doing it sooner rather than later really kind of makes more sense to me. So use your best judgment when you're completing any 3D puzzle set that has LED lighting kits to it. So aside from that those worked out well in the end. Now although some bits were rather confusing in terms of how to fold pieces and where to pop them into. Actually this 3D puzzle set was pretty darn straightforward in terms of assembly and of course the beginning was tough for me because you know it was my first time but once I got the idea of the process and I stayed organized I started to move much quicker. This puzzle only took me about five and a half hours to complete and honestly I was quite shocked but I definitely feel like now that I know what to expect I feel like I'm going to be way more prepared for my next 3D puzzle set. 3D puzzling is definitely a different kind of challenge and the best thing I can compare this to is pretty much building a LEGO set because it's pretty much the same thing in terms of assembly. You find your pieces you prep them and then you pop them together. If you love putting LEGO sets and models together you're going to love 3D puzzling and I'll raise my hand and I'll say I love LEGOs. So really this was fun to me even with the occasional bad word coming out of my mouth. Remember if you're interested in picking up one of these awesome sets from Cubic Fun I have the link down below of their store page along with a promo code so that you can get a discount. As I got closer and closer to the end I was getting too excited because it's absolutely beautiful and even with some of my misfits and mistakes and little repairs that I had to make once it was completed and the lights were on it was so majestic and really when you compare it to the actual photos of the castle this set is actually pretty accurate. It looks fantastic. I'm telling you as soon as I flick those lights on I was instantly transported to my courtyard and I saw myself sitting under my tree. I was in this set and it really gave me a different feel because you know it's not like I'm looking at a flat image. I'm telling you it's awesome. I highly recommend you try 3D puzzles if you haven't already. Now I can sit under my tree and have my cup of coffee. So like I mentioned earlier I do have two more 3D sets that I have to go through so if you want to see which models I have be sure to subscribe so that you can catch me completing those and many other jigsaw puzzles that I have. Well guys thanks for watching and I will see you in the next one.