Okay...this doesn't even remotely fit the robotics theme of the site, but it's a weekend project/gift for a family member. The only rule at my family's gift exchange this year is that the gifts have to be "made". For me this is an excuse to kill a weekend with arts and crafts. I started with the idea of duplicating the brain teaser puzzle below.
Original | Duplicate |
Well that one was easy enough to make...unfortunately it's not as colorful as the original (couldn't find that kind of rope). While looking online at similar wooden brain teasers I saw a picture of a small wooden box. As it turned out the box had a maze inside with the intended goal of getting a small ball through the invisible maze. I was hooked. So I went back to Lowe's grabbed what I needed and got to work. It has some weird dimensions because I had the guys at Lowe's cut the top and bottom before I really had anything designed (I wish I had a table saw...). I've always loved drawing mazes. The one inside this is fairly simple, but any maze is difficult when you can't see it. When I got home this is what I designed (in SketchUp again...).
After getting it all drawn up and dimensions figured out I went to cutting all 42 of the maze pieces (haha...42...totally unintentional). I then sanded off the edges, laid out a grid on the bottom board, placed all the pieces, glued them on and got ready to put the top on.
After gluing the top on I stacked ~60 pounds of books on it and let it sit overnight. Then I did some experiments with the stain I bought and some Sharpie markers to figure out if I needed to stain before putting a design on it (to prevent bleeding)...I did. After more sanding and one coat of stain I decided to draw a Celtic knot on the top. I've done quite a few of these on paper before. I was pretty nervous to do it on wood because it has to be inked and that's a lot more permanent on wood. But I followed the steps I always use and was very patient and careful. I managed to get it done without mistakes in just under 4 hours. So it's done now (with several more coats of stain to seal the design) and I have to say it looks pretty damn good. Shiny.The pictures don't do it justice (I really need a real camera) my phone just isn't good enough. I hope the gift is well received...and not too hard to solve :).
Cool idea bro! I really like the celtic knot design too.
ReplyDeleteThanks! You need to post in your blag :) !
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