Sliding down Memory Lane.

Boys and Girls,

I wasn’t gonna bring across this puzzle I published at LJ on Feb, 2021, however, another one I’m dragging across to post here makes reference to it and I’d hate for all you puzzle enthusiasts to frantically zip over to LJ and try to unsuccessfully search for the reference.

 

Before  all you puzzle naysayers take up a collection and drag me through a lawsuit,

I’d love to hear who doesn’t have memories of this item… even if not necessarily fond ones.

 

 

----------------------------------------- ooooOOOO From LJ OOOOooooo --------------------------------------------- 

 

Boys and Girls,

 

Before yawl burst into a chorus of not another bloody puzzle… show me a turner that stops after the first bowl/vase, the Woodie that only makes 1 box or that solitary slimline pen… I rest my case, Yoronnar.

 

So it's time for a trip down Memory lane… way, way long before Abbey Road and the beat les(s) mystery tour.

Rather than ask the question "Who had played with one of these sliding puzzles?" in their youth,

you'd get less hands up to count if instead you asked "Who never has?"

 

It wasn't till I searched the WEB for a picture of the original "plastic slider" that I was gobsmacked by the current price… a mere 6 shekels. Hell what a waste making it… tallying up a small fortune if I costed time as well as consumables… and I haven't included the wet refreshments. If it wasn't for the fact that I was packaging it up for a new LJ project, I would have called on old man vino to wipe it from my memory banks.

 

I did get my jollies in designing it in SketchUp using 18mm x 18mm squares and laminating 3mm thick pieces with 3mm dia. dowels,

then through CorelDraw

and eventually imortalising it in MDF on my laser.

 

Unfortunately my initial design of 3mm dowels was a tad (1mm) narrower in diameter than what was available… smallest was 4mm supplied by Bunnings.

 

Being "undeterred" due to a shortage of TP, I put it together as an exercise,

without the dowels.  While it could be manipulated, the pieces kept delaminating.

 

Back to the drawing board, I decided to round off the corners and thinking it might be easier to move, I changed the dimensions to 17.5mm x 17.5mm and chose to use 2mm dia. tooth-picks… another apology pottzy for more use for tooth-picks,

 

It's a pain in the arse when one goes through the exercise of design, cutting, preparing toot-pick dowels, glue up, sanding, engraving, wood filling, sanding, buffing, assembly, more sanding, more buffing

and find that this time it was too loose and pieces began to fall out… hell I could re-assemble it back in place.

 

The gauntlet has been thrown.  Back to the design table (SketchUp) and went back to the 18mm x 18mm rounded corners with 2mm tooth-picks as alignment/reinforcement dowels.

 Couple of assembly jigs and engraving jigs,

Through the full process again and finished up with a very executable puzzle,

all that remained was to buff them up,

 

And to think, if I costed time, materials, and equipment it only cost me about $300 to make what would have been an expensive $6 trinket.  Lucky I'm so frugal.

If I sold them for cost, I could buy a bucketload of push button nuts.

 

Keep safe jocks... and your jocks safe!

 

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