Customer Reviews

Cut & Assemble a Medieval Castle: A Full-Color Model of Caernarvon Castle in Wales

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The end product was worth it all, but the assembly process was sort of difficult. There were hardly any instructions on how to fold things, and the folding was difficult itself. Also it was hard to tell where to cut and what to cut and I made several mistakes cutting where I wasnt supposed to. Another thing that might have been helpful, is labels on EVERY piece of cutout. But in the end, the castle looked great and it was worth the effort. All in all the project takes about 24 hours total.

This model is very detailed so is best for an older student. It takes a great deal of cutting and an x-acto knife is recommended. This will take some time and is tedious work. Many pieces have printed numbers on them, but some have not and should be labeled as you cut them or you'll lose track. All that considered, this is a great model to tie in to a history and geography study. The booklet gives the historical background that you can key off of to teach a lot of things.

I have made several different paper castle projects. This one is well done and it looks great when finished. It took me somewhere between 10 and 15 hours of work. For the price you can't beat it. And everything is very accurate as far as the printing and how it goes together. This castle project doesn't have a base so I recommend you make one out of foam board or posterboard. Well worth it. Included at the top are a coupleof picture of the one that I made. One pic shows it almost completed without a base and the other picture shows it completed and mounted onto a piece of foamboard with a little terrain added.

We are studying the middle ages using a history based unit study curriculum. I needed something for my 6,8,10 yr olds to do while I read aloud to them. We ended up doing this as a family project instead. This is highly comprehensive for a "paper doll" type of project. It has a great background information source included in the book. We had been studying castles in-depth and knew about this one in particular because of it's impact in the history of Wales and how the British kept their power in that area. This is definitely comparable to a medium level model car project. It works best with a glue that is similar to model car glue. I chose a glue called "liquid fusion" that was harmless to the skin but dried quickly with little surface application. You are working in tight spaces with small tabs. This is not a child's toy, but a fantastic study on castles and their intricate workings within the compound. My 6 and 8 yr olds have not done much except to cut it out and the 11 yr old and I did the folding and gluing. Creasing with a butter knife on a hard surface is essential to structure properly setting up. Enjoy It! but go in with your eyes open. Highly recommended!

I bought this castle to build for a school project. I had planned on working on it with my son (10), but as it turned out there are so many pieces requiring fine motor skills to neatly cut everything out that I ended up doing the bulk of the work. There are also many, many folds and creases to made on the various pieces. Some of the pieces have 15-18 individual folds (little folds, but lots of them!). After prepping and folding it all needs to be glued together. Here is how my time worked out (my best estimate): Cut and label the pieces - approx. 10-12 hours. Score and glue the cut pieces - approx. 18-20 hours. Construct and finish the Castle - approx. 2-3 hours (for the project we added details to the diorama - painted grass & water, as well as, place the paper figures from the kit into the finished scene).

I read other peoples estimates on time and it took me WAY more time than some posted (here and on other sites). Either I'm really slow or my work was too meticulous or a combination of the two! hahaha. I saw some estimates of 10 - 15 hours (which is why I agreed to build this in the first place). IMHO, I don't know how that is possible. The book has approx. 12+ pages in it with many detailed structures to be cut, folded and glued. That means you would have to be able to finish a page an hour and I just don't see how that is possible. I did not make too many mistakes during the cutting process. I agree with other comments made that understanding which way some of the folds go can be tricky and this also slows you down. I also labeled the backs of the pieces as I cut them out on the backs and marked fold lines lightly so I remembered where the pieces got folded when I started to fold and glue the pieces.

I think that all the tools they recommend for constructing the castle are necessary (scissors, x-acto knife, straight edge or ruler, scorer, burnishing tool). IMHO - the scoring tool in particular is necessary. It is very hard to complete straight folds neatly and with accuracy without the assistance of a scorer (approx. $10.00). I started trying to make the folds without one (using a straight edge to assist with getting the folds straight) and purchased one shortly after I started making folds.

Some things that probably added to my time a bit... working with my son definately added time in the scoring and construction phases. But, I had to involve him since it was his project. But, I don't think this added a whole lot of time, because the truth is that I did the hardest parts alone. I also cut out (using the x-acto knife) the notches on tops of the castle walls all the way around to add some authenticity to how a real castle looks. If you don't do this I would estimate you could knock 1-1 1/2 hours off my time estimates for the construction.

Overall the castle looks very, very nice when it is completed. It is a very impressive completed structure. I promise it will not disappoint! However, for my application, if I had known the amount of time this was going to take me with my son to build, I would have selected a different method of completing his project. Thankfully I had started this early (the one time in my life I ever started anything early) and it was completed on-time to turn in for his school project :-)

I put this together when I was a kid and bought it again for my kids. This is a fun, cheap, project that you can get your kids into papercraft items. The book also provides some nice info about the castle and the functions of each tower.

Cons: You will have some problems fitting the items once you get the model nearly complete as the fitting issues become magnified with so many items together. Use a very thin glue to minimize this problem and be prepared for some custom fitting.