Box - Puzzle Box2.pdf - Projekty - stolarstwo - wyspa51

Heart-Shaped Puzzle Box

hen I was a kid, an old woman left me a small

wooden box in her will. The funny thing was that,

although it appeared to be just an ordinary empty box

with a small division to one side, when I shook it, it

rattled. After variously pushing, pressing and sliding the

sides and base of the box, I discovered that it had a secret

compartment! It was very exciting. When I pressed down

on one side of the bottom inside of the box, I was able to

s l i d e up one side of the little division to reveal a secret

space. As for the rattling noise, it was a solid gold half

sovereign!

This project draws its inspiration from that old wooden

box. It has all the same elements: a secret area, a sliding

lid, and a part that swivels open.

MAKING THE BOX

First things first, you must have a good long look at the

working drawings and see how the box works. Of course,

like all such boxes, it's pretty easy when you know how.

To open the box, swivel the lid to the right to reveal the

coin slot and the top of the dovetail key. Then, at the

same time, slide and swivel the coin slot face of the box

down and around to reveal the inside compartment.

When you have studied the design, draw out the heart

shape. Make a tracing. Pencil press transfer the traced

lines through to the layers of wood that go to make up

the box. You need six layers in all: four at 1/4" thick and

two at 1 1/8". Fret the shapes out on the scroll saw, so

that they are all slightly oversize—meaning that the line of

cut

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is about 1/8 " to the waste side of the drawn line. While

you are at it, cut out the inside-box area.

Glue the two 1 1/8" layers together and use a gouge

to pare the inside of the box to a clean finish. Next, use

a fine saw and chisel to pare a channel from top to

bottom of the box (at top-middle, where the two cheeks

meet). Now, pencil label the four 1/4"-thick cutouts:

"top," "second down," "third down" and "bottom." Then

glue the "bottom" to the box.

Glue the rod of wood in the channel and cut the

dovetail shape. This done, take the "third down" layer

and cut the two slots and the dovetail location notch.

When you are happy with the fit, take the "second down"

layer, set the scroll saw cutting table at an angle, and run

the wood through the saw to cut the miter across the top-

left cheek.

When you have made all the component parts, then

comes the not-so-easy part of putting the box together.

The best procedure is to first fix the slotted layer and the

bottom half of the mitered layer with a swivel screw. Then

glue the two halves of the mitered layer together. Finish

by gluing the lop layer to cover up the swivel screw.

Certainly it sounds complicated but, in fact, you will

have it worked out in much less time than it lakes to tell.

Finally, you rub it down with the graded sandpapers and

seal with Danish oil.

STEP-BY-STEP STAGES

SPECIAL TIP

The secret of getting this box right has to do with the

standard of the finishing and fitting. All the surfaces must

be rubbed down to a super-smooth finish, especially the

mating faces that are to be glued and the laces that are

to slide over each other. As to the final gluing, the best

procedure is to start off using double-sided sticky tape,

and then use the glue for real when you know how it all

goes together. 1 say this because it is the easiest thing in

the world to make a complete mess-up by gluing the

wrong two parts together. Be warned!

1 Detail showing how the square rod fits in the channel

so that the dovetail at the top locates in the slotted

layer. The procedure is to first glue and fit the rod, then

cut the dovetail.

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2 The miter cut on

the second layer

needs to be angled

so that it l o o k s

toward the b o t t o m

of the h e a r t . Be

mindful that the finer

the saw used to

make the cut, the

better the fit.

3 See how the top-left part of the mitered layer needs

to be glued to the slotted layer, so that the topmost part

of the miter hangs clear of the dovetail.

4 The pivot slot on the third layer needs to be

adjusted so that the layer can be slid down and

then swung over—so that the "cheeks" at the top

of the heart just

clear the dovetail.

5 In my design, the slotted layer is able to swing to

the left or right. If you want to make the box more

of a puzzle, a good modification would be to build in a

little "stop" peg so that the layer could only be swung to

the left.

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TWEAKING THE DESIGN

When you are fixing the swivel point and the slot, make sure that

the slot is long enough for the cheeks to clear the underside of the

dovetail.

PROTOTYPES

A prototype is a full-size working model that is made prior

to the project. The idea is to use inexpensive materials to

work out all the problems before you start using your

precious materials.

As you can imagine, this heart-shaped box didn't drop

from the sky perfect and ready-made—no way! In fact, it

was rather difficult to sort out. Although the various views

and cross sections looked fine on paper, I just couldn't

figure out how the three layers that make the top of the

box fit great together. In the end, after a deal of swearing

and messing about, 1 decided that the best way was to

make a full-size prototype from three pieces of 1/4"-thick

hardboard.

The working procedure went as follows: First I cut out

the three heart shapes and pencil labelled them "1," "2"

and "3." Then I drew the heart shape out on the bench.

Next, I took cutout number 3 and played around on the

drawn-out heart with various placings of the swivel point

and the sliding slot.

The main difficulty I found was positioning the miter

in such a way that there was enough room for the "cheeks"

of the heart to slide open.

When I had established the precise position of the

swivel point and the length of the slot, I then tried out

board number 2 and fixed the position of the miter slot.

And, of course, when it came to making the box for real,

I had the hardboard cutouts to use as templates.

And just in case you are thinking that you are so s k i l l e d

that you can go straight in and make the toy, the table or

whatever, without making a working model, yes, you

might well be lucky once or even twice. But sooner or

later you are going to make a mistake with one or a l l parts

getting incorrectly cut and/or glued.

For example: I once designed the most beautiful chair.

It looked wonderful on paper; the drawn elevations were

a work of art! But when it was built, it was unstable, it

was grossly uncomfortable, and it started to pull apart.

Another time, 1 made a moving toy that looked good on

paper, but when 1 made it full size, the friction between

the wheels and the floor was so great that it simply didn't

work.

All this is to say that the only sure way of knowing that

a design is going to work is to make a full-size working

model.

6 Because I had quite a lot of trouble cutting out the

center of the box—first with the drills and then with a

gouge I think the next lime around 1 will redesign the

dovetail post so that it cuts right through the wall of the

box. Then 1 can more easily clear the inside-box waste on

my fine-bladed band saw.

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Box - Puzzle Box2.pdf

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