I was chuffed when Pottzy (and a few others) acknowledged my All Tetra Pod Puzzle and after received good feedback from friends, I felt cajoled into lifting my game and trying one out of solids.
I picked some spalted LOOMBY (Log Out Of My Back Yard)
and due to the 4mm thickness of the stock and the intricate shape of this puzzle, I compromised in laser cutting to provide fingers to assist in glue up and stability of the box.
I’m more renown for a sommelier rather than a botanist and had no idea what the wood was or its Janka properties and was disappointed in how easily it was laser cut (maybe too high power setting caused heavy kerf burning) and ease of deformation by sanding, led to what appeared to be oversized kerf in the joins
Probably should have used thicker than 4mm boards… was closer to 3mm after sanding.
My normal practice is to use my 6mm timber thickness pattern to cut from 3-6mm thick stock and sand the fingers off, however, the inner joins in this box presented new problems,
and I had to make radical, on the fly customisations to the shoulders to eventually produce a workable puzzle,
Being disgruntled, decided on thicker slices (6mm) for the next box,
however, was taken aback how much difficulty the laser had in penetrating those extra 2mm… maybe I should have used that patheticimperial measurements.
Begorrah, it wasn’t the laser power but the spalting fighting back… no idea of the chemical composition, but as soon as the beam hit the spalting, it charred more
and in places refused to fully penetrate the 6mm... adding to the punkiness of the wood, separation left a lot of tear out.
Fortunately the tear out was easily removed by my new HOZO NeoBlade,
… not a must have, but a handy piece of kit if you have one,
Had a lot of issues with the punkiness of the wood as pieces kept breaking off along the grain,
Fortunately a tad of CA held well and even endured the subsequent sanding and heavy buffing.
Using the 6mm pattern on 6mm stock, didn’t have the protruding fingers to sand off
except for the first one made out of 4mm stock,
on which I could flush cut the fingers off the shoulders,
before full assembly.
The two made out of 6mm had to be sanded on my upside down belt sander… another oopsie emerged as the stock was a tad thicker than 6mm, so I had to sand the whole sides flat to reach the shorted fingers to reach and enable sanding the burn marks off.
The shoulders presented another challenge to remove the burn marks,\
as they couldn’t be subjected to the belt sander. My Fe$tool multi-tool
came to the rescue,
Buffing the shoulders was a challenge and the first one finished up shattered into 5 pieces on the floor... now that didn't bring tears to my eyes, but trying to stand up after picking up the pieces did. The one good property of the wood used was that it broke clean along the grain and was seamlessly gluable using CA… the glue patching was unrecognisable and held solid… phew!
Comparisson of the 6mm vs 4mm stock,
So far I have 2 MDF and 3 LOOMBY versions of this puzzle… 4 to give away and one for the storage,
This puzzle’s epilogue can be found in theoriginal post.
Thanks for looking…
Don’t be crafty Craftisians,... SHARE your craft!
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
Plywood works better especially for the small sections that are going across the grain and have them break off at the corner. Not much LOOMBY plywood though!!!!! Maybe you could call it POOMBY if the plywood was found laying there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cheers, Jim ........................ Variety is the spice of life...............Learn something new every day
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder... that's why SWMBOs insist on the MBO... just to remind us Adonises of the limited beholders out there.
I was mesmerised by the pattern/look of the wood (log), but it is definitely the worst media I have ever worked with... I'd rather have a handful of rattlesnakes... Hmm, maybe a good topic for the next puzzle... Pottzy, suppress those tears of joy.
There was enough wood there to make around 11 puzzle (with careful layout), however, got the three workables and enough of that cantankerous, mainly spalted left over to bugger up two more... three if I ignored directional grain, which I always buggered up anyway.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
so your saying you tried to be a "real" woodworker working with "real" wood ? hey that wood was damn worth the effort my friend. hey when you get sick of that nasty stuff just ship it to me ok !
working with my hands is a joy,it gives me a sense of fulfillment,somthing so many seek and so few find.-SAM MALOOF.
I'll never be a real wood worker unless my node grew every time I told a lie... hell I'd be there 1/2 an hour before my feet caught up (there we go again, bane of my life, bloody imperial). Unfortunately that wood is only good for laminating/veneering... the mitre saw just shatters it.
Maybe if I stabilised it... I've got the pump, the pot, the cactus juice and all I have to do is read, which I could do if it wasn't for my hate of bloody reading.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
It'll be a worthwhile test, I've used it on blocks of burl that were a bit punky and it did well. Even commandeered the family toaster oven to do the cooking.
Even I agree... humbly besmirching my beloved MDF. The thing I like about MDF is it's thickness consistency... even for crappy Chinese made. I can focus my laser in seconds by lifting the bed to 52.45mm for 6mm MDF and 49.69mm for 3mm. However, if I sold them, then the effort may be worth it, but as for free give aways, the MDF is quick and hassle free. If I costed time for selling, it'd be several hundred dollars... the hours spent recutting, glueing breaks, filling... and then going back to recutting, glueing breaks, filling... recutting, glueing breaks, filling... recutting, glueing breaks, filling... Several times the box crumbled while holding it finger tight for the CA to set.
If your first cut is too short... Take the second cut from the longer end... LBD
