My family has a traditional Christmas joke: somebody always wraps a present inside a present inside another present…
A photo doesn’t really explain it; watch the 90-second video:
My family has a traditional Christmas joke: somebody always wraps a present inside a present inside another present…
A photo doesn’t really explain it; watch the 90-second video:
Did you provide needle nose tweezers with the gift? Awesome job! One sneeze and that last puzzle goes flying.
That’s amazing! How in the world did you not lose those tiny pieces in the GF tray holes after they were cut??
Omg…your family has patience…in my family, this would be a tradition killer. Very cool though. I know you cut the pieces individually, how do you keep the colored image in the area that needs to be cut?
The kerf adjustment is
Unique twist on the traditional nested configuration. Nice work.
Yes, I did include tweezers … and yes, I did lose more than one puzzle to a sneeze!
How in the world did you not lose those tiny pieces in the GF tray holes
They were cut upside down on top of an alignment sled, not resting directly on the tray.
If you mean, how did I align the cut precisely on the piece, I’m preparing a tutorial on that.
Squee! Very squeeee!
A few more pictures on the tiny puzzle (different box)…
At that size, it starts to get challenging. To make it actually interlocking, the 1.8mm pieces have to be cut individually with kerf adjustment. They also have to be masked, or the picture will be completely covered in char. De-masking is tricky for multiple reasons. The pieces are fragile and the delicate cuts aren’t always successful. Every puzzle contains multiple substitution pieces; I haven’t yet cut a complete puzzle without rejected pieces.
Edge char has to be blotted manually (the salt trick isn’t a good solution here). Crumbs stuck in the holes are removed with dental floss. The whole process requires so much handling of each piece that some of them are bound to get a little scuffed.
The origami boxes are modified versions of this. I use the laser to lightly score the fold lines. Unfortunately I don’t have the software to easily parameterize the boxes.
Since the pieces look to be about the size of large salt grains, I can see how that would be problematic!
(Great job on it!)
So tiny. Thanks for sharing the details. ThIs is really cool! My FIL would love these, but I just don’t have that kind of patience!
That is so awesome! That tiny one, wow! I thought the middle one was small! I think I would’ve started that one as the small one and worked up from there, as my eyesight and dexterity wouldn’t be good enough for the littlest one. Great job! What was the family’s reaction?
This is AMAZING. I am really looking forward to your tutorial. Thank you for sharing.
They got a kick out of it My uncle especially loves all kind of games; I’d hazard he’s the one that started the tradition decades ago.
Re dexterity, I found it easiest to work the puzzles on top of a sticky-side-up piece of transfer paper.
You have certainly set the bar high for puzzle makin! I’m looking forward to your tutorial.
Wow, just wow, that’s amazing!
You have a lot of patience! This is really awesome.
Yeah, it took me months to develop good techniques and become proficient. A lot longer than younger people would have taken. I hope the tutorial will be helpful to other people (and especially that people will find improved techniques and share them)!