in the Chinese zodiac, however, lets' box that up and for this duck, 2025 is going to be the Year of the Puzzles.
I’m going to hold back on the crapola in the description of this project as the ground work is much the same as a lot of the other previous puzzles… and many now happened to be made out of boring solids, rather than the majestic, figured MDF.
But don’t get concerned, I’m only cutting back to the length of the post and not the number of puzzle posts.
This puzzle consists of 6 “L” shaped pieces that have to be crammed into the box,
Don’t get confused, their orientation in the picture above, doesn’t change their shape from a “L” and still remains the 1113 12th letter in my Aussie alphabet… or 19th , when I claim my heritage as the son of a Hungarian fern cutter (hence the Aussie confusion).
What makes this puzzle interesting/different... other than it is different... is that there are 2 x 18mm³ cubes that will inhibit movement. With the magic of transparent MDF, you can spot the blocks placed discreetly inside the box,
I made up some spacers to help in centering the bottom block,
While the puzzles presented in the gallery are primarily made out of pine for the pieces and camphor laurel for the box, naturally there is the mandatory MDF.
The first box I made turned out to be a tad too small preventing the rotation of one of the pieces inside the box… if I had tried it in SketchUp, I would have found that the box was .9mm short in width,
Followed up by expanding the box by 1mm (both sides) and all was OK.
This boo-boo was ordained by the MDF gods as I forgot to delete the face identifiers I used for assembly and they got cut into the box faces,
I didn’t think that was catastrophic, however, after forcing one of the “L” pieces into the box I couldn’t extricate it without ripping one side and part of the top off… that CA holds weller than I expected.
On hindsight I could have (actually did) cut one of the “L” short and referred to it as the solution’s “key” piece,
If interested in any of mine (LBD), measurements can be made available on request for anyone not familiar with SketchUp… though a working knowledge of SketchUp’s navigation (not its design/use features) and access to 3DW could be of benefit.
Kids love ‘em and most of us are still kids.
… for today.
Don’t be crafty Craftisians,... SHARE your craft!
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
BB1 What started your interest in puzzles? It requires so much precision (and patience).
No more precision and patience than you have proven in your projects.
To cut a short story, long.... My enthusiasm towards puzzles started back around 1967-68 when I bought my first puzzle in a magic shop while footing it on my way to Melbourne uni.
After posting a puzzle on LJ, just as a quota filler, I got inspired by corelz125, who started the ball rolling back there and continued it here.
The hardest part of puzzles are the dimensions and solutions… not so much the making if you follow measurements. Hopefully I have made that easy(er) though the metric may need to be converted to better more measurable imperial fractions.
I found that there is limited interest by many woodworkers, however, a fair interest out there in the public who need to be supplied and when you see the price of some of these puzzles on the internet ($100+), I’m surprised they aren’t being snapped up and reproduced like hot cakes.
Furthermore they make great Christmas presents and are appreciated by the more ingenious youths… and I love to carry around a pocketful of the small (and easy to make on the laser) ones, and just hand them out as freebies to people I come across that may seem to be interested.
They also kept/keep me active while I’m recovering from a 80% loss of my left arm usage due to a slipped disc in my back in 2021.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
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