Kuba Cigar Box Puzzle

Well, after being stuck in a wheelchair for 2 months I was itching to build something!  Just a bit of the ole arthritis, should be back to standard soon I reckon.  

I have had these really cool cigar boxes for a while and I was hankering to build a puzzle box for my very elderly Uncle, for whom back in his day was an avid bike rider himself.  Now he might have preferred this was a Harley on here, but he is 80, I don’t think he will kick my ass, but ya never know, lol. 

Cigar boxes can normally be fairly ordinary, however, Acid Cigars are known to have a reputation as being one of the world’s finest infused cigars.  The box walls are 3/8” thick!  The quality of the box certainly reflects the quality of the product within.  An interesting detail about Acid Cigars is how they pack their cigars into the boxes.  Each box of cigars is padded with B Grade tobacco leaves all around the edges, amazing!

Gears are always fun to use, less fun to make, lol.  To begin, the gear must be made up of two 1/8” layers of wood that have grain running cross form each other.  This will be to keep the little teeth strong and less chance of short grain failure.  I bought the Gear Generator form Wendel Mathias from you tube, and I made a bunch of random sizes and printed them onto paper.  Whenever I need a gear, I go to my files and pick out the right size, the glue it onto the wood blank.  After that it’s steps to drill out the Center hole and the valley in between the gears.  It’s easy to zip in with a bandsaw now to cut the teeth.  A clean up of the teeth edges on a small belt sander makes it quick work. Still not done… next I have to use a fine sanding stick to soften all the edges before prefinishing with a wipable varathane.  I would hazard to say the there is more time in making the 6 gears used here then in the building of the rest of the design, lol.  

One of the things I like to play with is making it appear that the gears perform the sole solitary function that is immediately found when exploring.  Turning the two gears in unison is oddly satisfying.  However, the largest gear has an arm attached inside, and it cannot reach the unlock switch where it is currently located.  The large gear actually also can slide on a track, and will disengage with its smaller gear.  Only then will the little arm be able to release the lid lock mechanism.  Fearing that might be too easy, everything else about the mechanics is designed from keeping you from getting this far.  

So many challenges in getting a mechanical design to function, parts that need to slide, need to slide, spaces, gaps, allowances and tolerances are all of critical importance to have a puzzle function properly.  

Naming this one was easy, Kuba is right on the front label.  I mean I could have called it ACID, but that might have been too trippy? 

Thanks for looking guys.