{"id":293,"date":"2013-12-27T14:50:14","date_gmt":"2013-12-27T14:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/diyguidebook.co.uk\/?p=293"},"modified":"2016-10-24T19:47:16","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T19:47:16","slug":"bridges-of-xibalba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaelbibby.co.uk\/woodwork\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"Bridges of Xibalba"},"content":{"rendered":"\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"google_plus\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"google_plus\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a><\/span>

\"\"<\/a> It seems to have become almost a Christmas family tradition now, but for the last few years I have made a wooden puzzle for my brother as a Christmas present. There are two main reasons for this; first because I never really know what to get him, and second because I really like making stuff out of wood \ud83d\ude42 So this Christmas I wanted to make a puzzle which would challenge both of us (Me in terms of building it and him in terms of solving it!).<\/p>\n

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I spent a bit of time in the weeks before Christmas looking on the internet for ideas of puzzles to make which were not the stereotypical “Put-it-back-together-again” type, but rather something that was both visually appealing but also (supposedly) challenging to solve. I eventually settled on a puzzle called “Ziggurat Square” which I found on a website called Creative Crafthouse<\/a> which I believe is an American company specialising in wooden puzzles. I’d like to say I made my own version of the puzzle but in truth I simply copied their design (Trusting that it was actually solvable!) with only the addition of a lid and a change of title to help prevent my brother from googling a solution \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

The idea of the puzzle is that all the pieces must be fitted into the box (Pretty hard in itself) and all towers must be connected by at least one bridge. There are of course lots of possible solutions but only 2 (apparently) where each tower is connected by 3 bridges. This is the real challenge and one which I hoped would prove difficult for my brother to solve.<\/p>\n

As always I initially designed the project in my computer using Maya (A 3D modelling package) to figure out sizes and angles etc. Once this was done I was far more confident in the design and how to build it.<\/p>\n

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I initially built the project inside the computer to help figure out lengths and angles<\/p><\/div>\n

Then on to the woodwork. I started with a single plank of Iroko which I had initially bought to be used as part of a garden table project which never got started. I squared the board on the planer\/thicknesser and was then ready to start cutting pieces.<\/p>\n

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Board of Iroko planed and squared<\/p><\/div>\n

I set up my bandsaw table to 20 degrees and cut a few strips off the board, being careful to measure the sizes accurately and use the fence in order to keep to the correct lines. Normally this would probably be done on a table saw, but as I don’t have one, the band saw did the job OK. It did leave rough edges, but these were easily sanded down.<\/p>\n

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Bandsaw table set to 20 degree tilt<\/p><\/div>\n

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Cutting long strips on bandsaw<\/p><\/div>\n

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These were the strips that I cut on the bandsaw<\/p><\/div>\n

You can see from the photos that there were a few strips. The thicker of the 3 was mostly spare with the exception of needing to cut the sides of the box from it. The middle size was for the towers themselves and the thinnest piece was to cut all of the individual bridges. All of this cutting was done on the mitre saw. When cutting the towers the saw was set to a 20 degree compound angle to match the 20 degrees cut on the bandsaw<\/p>\n