3D Metal Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral

A few weekends ago I spent several hours putting together one of my Christmas presents, a 3D metal model of Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral. It was by far the most difficult model I've done, though they all have at least one hard part. Sorry for the poor quality of the photos. My room isn't well lit and I took them with my iPad rather than a real camera.

Here are the pieces: the two sheets of metal, the case, my pliers, and the instructions.

And a few unfolded flying buttresses pieces, with a measuring tape for scale. These were not fun to fold or install. Half way through I had to stop as my eyes were starting to hurt from the glare off the metal and trying to concentrate so hard to make sure each of the pieces 3 prongs went into the correct slots. 

I really love how detailed these sets are, and this one exceeded my expectations. The West Facade was made up of several parts, giving it a lot of depth. The portals (doors) were 3 layers deep! (Sorry the photo's blurry.)

 And here's the finished model from both sides. Yes, I did go back and straighten some of the buttresses.

I'm very happy with how the model turned out. It's quite large (for one of these), and it looks incredible.

Geek Gifts: Jigsaw Puzzles

Now, I know what you're thinking, you can get jigsaw puzzles everywhere.  Why are you mentioning them?  But I don't think most people realize how diverse jigsaw puzzles have become, or how cool.

For example, Bits and Pieces in Canada (I've used this company several times), and The Puzzle House (found using a quick google search, I've never bought from them before) list quite a number of different puzzle types: 1000 piece, glow in the dark, shaped, 3D and 4D to name the more unusual.

My husband bought me a glow in the dark puzzle from Bits and Pieces (unfortunately they don't have that particular one on their site anymore).  Not only was it challenging to put together - the pieces not being the traditional jigsaw shape - it looked fantastic in the dark (once you ran a strong flashlight over it to 'charge' the glow in the dark paint).   Here's one they do have in stock, under normal lights and our train puzzle, glowing.

Shaped puzzles look cute, so if you can find a shape your recipient likes, that's a bonus.  They're usually smaller puzzles though, so don't pick one of those if you want to give them a challenge.
 

I came across 4D puzzles at the Toronto Science Center.  We haven't put ours together yet, but they sure look cool.  Here's New York: 

3D puzzles are fairly common now.  You can find them in a lot of games shops, toy stores, science stores and department stores.  Some of the things you can make are pretty awesome, like globes and castles.  My husband's got the CN Tower, a working grandfather clock (it's tough to change the battery),R2D2 and more.  Here's a globe and Neuschwanstein Castle:

If you want more story with your puzzle, I stumbled across mystery puzzles at a boutique shop on a trip up North.  You can buy similar things online at places like The Puzzle House or Are You Game.  The one I bought was an Alfred Hitchcock mystery jigsaw that requires you to read a small book about various characters who, in this puzzle, have 'an unusual "obsession" with Alfred Hitchcock and his films'.  You then assemble the puzzle - which doesn't match the cover (so you can't cheat and see what the puzzle's supposed to look like while assembling it), and then solve the mystery.

Or you can just go with nigh impossible black and white 1000 piece puzzles, like High Security by artist Thomas Barbey (available, among other places, at Boardgames.ca) which my husband recently finished.  I helped with the castle.  :)