pjm699
Established Member
Not sure if this truly belongs in this section but never mind.
I decided to make a couple of mazes for friends with birthdays coming up shortly.
The making is very simple but the working out of the layers is quite tricky.
The maze is made of 5 layers of 3mm MDF (ply or whatever) 140*180mm with a solid sheet (slightly bigger) top and bottom and a timber frame.
A 5p piece is the counter that is guided through the maze- I was tempted to use a commemorative £5 piece but that would make the maze a two player game.
1) I made a template from my paper musings with the passage-holes marked (Numbers) and the corners of the tracks (letters)
2) I taped the five pieces of MDF together with the template on top and drilled a 1mm hole through each of the template holes through the whole stack. None of the innards are seen at the end so extra holes do not matter. Number them 1-5 and stack in that order - then if the drill wanders a little on the way down it does not matter.
The passage-holes only are drilled in this image
3) Drill out the passage holes with a 20mm Forstner bit (the 1mm holes give centres) and the corners - just touch the drill to the work piece to help marking out - I did fully drill the first one but that took much longer and the saw will cut it just as easily later.
The corner marks are drilled in this on as well
4) Mark it all up so you know which tracks to cut-out
5) Cut it out (scroll saw bit)
6) Stack the pieces up with a couple of solid bits at the ends, masking tape together and start playing.
You can see the tracks in the lower levels wandering off in different directions
Other side of the stack
7) Make a frame if you can be bothered.
Inside of frame is a fraction larger than the internals, I am going to use a top hat section with ply set into it to look like real wood and keep it all neat - the outer pieces therefore need to be bigger than the inners by the rebate plus a tiny bit (however much spare there is between the inners and the frame).
The frame is lying on its side here so the puzzle (maze) would be standing vertically on top of this with the outer pieces in the rebates.
If anyone else wants to make one, I will happily list the drilling positions with a diagram / .DWG (when I come back from a work trip next week).
The maze is pretty tricky to navigate through as the coin needs to move both up and down through the layers as well as up and down and side to side.
This is only the first one as well - there are plans afoot for a more diabolical version as well!
I decided to make a couple of mazes for friends with birthdays coming up shortly.
The making is very simple but the working out of the layers is quite tricky.
The maze is made of 5 layers of 3mm MDF (ply or whatever) 140*180mm with a solid sheet (slightly bigger) top and bottom and a timber frame.
A 5p piece is the counter that is guided through the maze- I was tempted to use a commemorative £5 piece but that would make the maze a two player game.
1) I made a template from my paper musings with the passage-holes marked (Numbers) and the corners of the tracks (letters)
2) I taped the five pieces of MDF together with the template on top and drilled a 1mm hole through each of the template holes through the whole stack. None of the innards are seen at the end so extra holes do not matter. Number them 1-5 and stack in that order - then if the drill wanders a little on the way down it does not matter.
The passage-holes only are drilled in this image
3) Drill out the passage holes with a 20mm Forstner bit (the 1mm holes give centres) and the corners - just touch the drill to the work piece to help marking out - I did fully drill the first one but that took much longer and the saw will cut it just as easily later.
The corner marks are drilled in this on as well
4) Mark it all up so you know which tracks to cut-out
5) Cut it out (scroll saw bit)
6) Stack the pieces up with a couple of solid bits at the ends, masking tape together and start playing.
You can see the tracks in the lower levels wandering off in different directions
Other side of the stack
7) Make a frame if you can be bothered.
Inside of frame is a fraction larger than the internals, I am going to use a top hat section with ply set into it to look like real wood and keep it all neat - the outer pieces therefore need to be bigger than the inners by the rebate plus a tiny bit (however much spare there is between the inners and the frame).
The frame is lying on its side here so the puzzle (maze) would be standing vertically on top of this with the outer pieces in the rebates.
If anyone else wants to make one, I will happily list the drilling positions with a diagram / .DWG (when I come back from a work trip next week).
The maze is pretty tricky to navigate through as the coin needs to move both up and down through the layers as well as up and down and side to side.
This is only the first one as well - there are plans afoot for a more diabolical version as well!
