3 Things to Consider When Buying Your First Puzzle

3 Things to Consider When Buying Your First 3D Wooden Puzzle

Picture yourself as a child crouched over a cardboard jigsaw puzzle on your grandmother's coffee table. You’re sorting the pieces by shape, size, and color. After several hours elapse, you finish and stand back to admire the picture as it appears in front of you: two-dimensional and expectedly similar to the picture on the box. Today a new generation of puzzles has emerged, three-dimensional (3D) puzzles. What exactly are 3D wooden puzzles and what makes a 3D puzzle experience stellar?

Put simply, wooden 3D puzzles give way to an entirely new level of immersion.

3D puzzles come in a variety of different materials, ranging from metal, wood, and acrylic. Wooden 3D puzzles, such as Intrism Pro and Intrism Mini, are made from Baltic birch plywood cut by laser cutters to give you pieces that are more durable and fit together more precisely than cardboard, all without using tools or glue. Think of it like getting the best elements of jigsaw puzzles and woodworking all in one.

Unlike traditional jigsaw puzzles, wooden puzzles for adults and teenagers are built from the inside out and involve sequential steps to complete the assembly. Each piece interlocks together and slowly the completed puzzle starts to take shape. The picture on the box doesn’t do justice to the immersion and depth of the final 3D puzzle. And the best part? You never have to disassemble it!

What happens if you break a piece during assembly of a 3D puzzle kit?

When assembling a wooden puzzle, you may break or lose a piece during assembly. It happens to even the most experienced puzzlers. Before a purchase, it is always good to check how replacement pieces are handled.

Are the pieces free? Is shipping free? Where is it shipping from? These are all great questions. While we can’t speak for other companies around the world, if you break a wooden piece during the assembly of an Intrism puzzle, we send out free replacements with free shipping. We ship from the USA (specifically Columbus, OH), so if you are also in the USA, shipping time is only a few days

What is puzzle tolerance for 3D wooden puzzles? 

For 3D puzzles, tolerance is the degree to which a piece’s actual measurement can be off and still fit together correctly with other pieces. In modern manufacturing, required tolerances can vary widely depending on things like the size and use of a particular item. In the case of laser cutting plywood, the cutting precision is only as good as a machine’s designed capability, anywhere from +/- 1mm down to +/- 0.05mm or better. Typically, higher precision requires a better machine.

To create a wooden puzzle with pieces that fit together without tools or glue, the tolerances are very important to get right. If the precision of a laser cutter is lower than the required tolerances of the pieces, the resulting puzzle will either require excess force or sanding to assemble or be too loose to stay together without glue.

At Intrism, we use state-of-the-art laser cutting machines manufactured by Epilog, a USA-based company. Epilog lasers have a high degree of accuracy that goes down to 0.025 millimeters. This gives us great laser cutting precision, but we still have to ensure that this precision is higher than the required tolerances of our pieces. To do this, we have relief slits where each piece connects to another, we sand each sheet after laser cutting to control the thickness more precisely, and we have a number of more proprietary design processes that further reduce the required precision of our pieces. All of this results in high-quality laser-cut puzzle pieces that easily click into place together and greatly reduces the chance of needing to use excessive force or glue during assembly.

Trust us, your fingers will thank you for selecting puzzles with precisely engineered tolerances.

Interactive 3D Wooden Puzzles: Where the Fun Never Stops

When it comes to 3D puzzles, there is no shortage of options. While many 3D wooden puzzles are static models or mechanical models, there are others that are interactive. While static and mechanical wooden puzzles are great, they are usually most enjoyed during assembly, rather than in their final form. This is where interactive puzzles really shine.

With interactive puzzles (such as Intrism’s 3D wooden puzzles) the fun doesn’t end after you put them together. With Intrism Pro and Intrism Mini, you are immersed into an exhilarating 360-degree marble maze game as you guide the marble through sudden drops, rails, stairs, ramps, rings, and more throughout the wooden labyrinth. You'll need to use your full range of spatial skills—including cognition, memory, perception, and dexterity—to reach the finish line!

Wood 3D puzzles are challenging, fun, and educational all at the same time. Whether you’re looking to buy your first 3D puzzle or simply crave a new experience, you’ll know what to keep an eye out for when purchasing your next 3D wooden puzzle kit.