Inspired by these bandwsaw 3-part boxes I decided to try to make something similar on the glowforge.
Each of the segments is made of of two pieces: a part with the hole in it to make it a box and the lid part. Each of those parts are 120 degrees and they overlap for 30 degrees and are glued together. To open the box you sort of need to pull all three parts out at once. The part with the hole in it is 8 layers of 1/8th plywood with 7 of them having the hole cut out. The top is 2 layers of plywood.
The original video I had seen actually had three layers for each piece. The lid and part with a hole (middle) and then a bottom part as well. The bottom was attached to the middle on the other side of the middle. I did actually add the bottom layer but then saw the note in the video that 9 out of 10 adults find these boxes impossible to open. When you offset three 120 degree pieces with a 30 degree overlap you end up with each 1/3 of the box spanning 300 degrees of the circle and, yes, it’s really hard to open. I actually needed to have my husband help me wedge it apart by working screw drivers into the seams! I decided I’d rather have a slightly less puzzly box and slightly more useful box so pulled the bottom layer off and went back to this version.
The paint idea was from my son but adds a lot.
When making the sub-pieces (e.g. the middle part or the lid parts) I used pins to help line everything up. If I do it again I’ll add pins to keep the offset top piece and the middle piece together. As it is now they are just face glued and with the amount of leverage one can get on the tip of the top part it is likely they will pop off at some point. Still … it was fun to figure out how to make this and see it come together.
