Mame aruki panels
Today, I continued working on the process from yesterday. Right now, I’m making three types of puzzle boxes at the same time. First are the 2.5-sun box and the 3-sun box.
For the 2.5-sun box, I glued nyatoh wood panels onto the two Aruki (moving panels) sides today. Yesterday, I had already attached nyatoh wood side panels to this box. This box has a rare 5-step mechanism. One side is made with a single flat panel, and the other side is a panel with a sliding key (kannuki). About 25 years ago, I had the idea to make a puzzle box that could hold a small puzzle box inside. When I thought about the size of that box, I felt that a mechanism with too many steps might not be a good fit. So, I decided to make it a 5-step box. At that time, I hadn’t made many different types of puzzle boxes yet, so I think I came up with this unusual mechanism because I was still experimenting. However, the panel with the sliding key tends to warp easily. That’s because the glued area between the outer panel and the Aruki panel is small. To avoid this, I designed the box so that the sliding key side moves first, and the single-panel Aruki side moves last. This way, the side with the sliding key has a larger glued surface area.
This box has a mechanism where the left and right sides move. Since one of the sides is made from a single panel, I can glue both sides at the same time. This method is the same as the one used for the seven-step puzzle box. So today, I attached those two sides at the same time. With that, the assembly of the 2.5-sun box is now complete. I plan to do the finishing work either tomorrow or the day after.
After that, I checked the walnut wood I had stacked yesterday for extra drying. I felt that it had dried as much as it could, so I shaved down the pieces I needed and made the side panels for the 3-sun box. Just like with the 2.5-sun box yesterday, I used a clamp to apply pressure and will leave it overnight.
Tomorrow, I’ll be attaching the Aruki side panels. When I think about it, this 3-sun box has a 7-step mechanism, so the way I make it is the same as today’s 2.5-sun box 😄 One side is a fixed panel made from a single board, and the other side is a panel with a sliding key.
After that, I steadily worked on attaching the Aruki panels for the Mame puzzle boxes. Since there are many boxes, it ended up being quite a large number of panels. This time, about 160 box frames were completed. Since each box needs 4 Aruki panels, that means I have to attach around 640 panels. It’s not just a matter of simply attaching them — I have to adjust the tightness of each one carefully, so I’ve been working on them little by little whenever I have time.
When doing this kind of work—attaching a large number of Aruki panels—the most important thing is how tight or loose to make the panel movement during the previous step. If I make the aruki panels move loosely, it becomes easy to attach them to the box frames, and the work goes smoothly. However, if I do that, the final puzzle box will have very loose or even wobbly movements, which is not good. On the other hand, if I make the movements tighter, attaching the panels becomes much more difficult... and the working time increases a lot. That’s why it’s so important to aim for just the right amount of tightness. Even a small difference can change the feel of the movement, so I have to be very careful and pay close attention during the process.
The knock box I finished the other day is almost ready to be sold, but right now I’m having a bit of a hard time making the instruction sheet on how to open it...haha. I'm still figuring out how to explain the first part — which is the key feature of this box. Just writing it in words isn’t very easy to understand, so I’m planning to include a diagram. But I’m not really used to making diagrams on the computer, so it’s taking some time...It looks like it’ll be ready for sale very soon!😅
For the 2.5-sun box, I glued nyatoh wood panels onto the two Aruki (moving panels) sides today. Yesterday, I had already attached nyatoh wood side panels to this box. This box has a rare 5-step mechanism. One side is made with a single flat panel, and the other side is a panel with a sliding key (kannuki). About 25 years ago, I had the idea to make a puzzle box that could hold a small puzzle box inside. When I thought about the size of that box, I felt that a mechanism with too many steps might not be a good fit. So, I decided to make it a 5-step box. At that time, I hadn’t made many different types of puzzle boxes yet, so I think I came up with this unusual mechanism because I was still experimenting. However, the panel with the sliding key tends to warp easily. That’s because the glued area between the outer panel and the Aruki panel is small. To avoid this, I designed the box so that the sliding key side moves first, and the single-panel Aruki side moves last. This way, the side with the sliding key has a larger glued surface area.
This box has a mechanism where the left and right sides move. Since one of the sides is made from a single panel, I can glue both sides at the same time. This method is the same as the one used for the seven-step puzzle box. So today, I attached those two sides at the same time. With that, the assembly of the 2.5-sun box is now complete. I plan to do the finishing work either tomorrow or the day after.
After that, I checked the walnut wood I had stacked yesterday for extra drying. I felt that it had dried as much as it could, so I shaved down the pieces I needed and made the side panels for the 3-sun box. Just like with the 2.5-sun box yesterday, I used a clamp to apply pressure and will leave it overnight.
Tomorrow, I’ll be attaching the Aruki side panels. When I think about it, this 3-sun box has a 7-step mechanism, so the way I make it is the same as today’s 2.5-sun box 😄 One side is a fixed panel made from a single board, and the other side is a panel with a sliding key.
After that, I steadily worked on attaching the Aruki panels for the Mame puzzle boxes. Since there are many boxes, it ended up being quite a large number of panels. This time, about 160 box frames were completed. Since each box needs 4 Aruki panels, that means I have to attach around 640 panels. It’s not just a matter of simply attaching them — I have to adjust the tightness of each one carefully, so I’ve been working on them little by little whenever I have time.
When doing this kind of work—attaching a large number of Aruki panels—the most important thing is how tight or loose to make the panel movement during the previous step. If I make the aruki panels move loosely, it becomes easy to attach them to the box frames, and the work goes smoothly. However, if I do that, the final puzzle box will have very loose or even wobbly movements, which is not good. On the other hand, if I make the movements tighter, attaching the panels becomes much more difficult... and the working time increases a lot. That’s why it’s so important to aim for just the right amount of tightness. Even a small difference can change the feel of the movement, so I have to be very careful and pay close attention during the process.
The knock box I finished the other day is almost ready to be sold, but right now I’m having a bit of a hard time making the instruction sheet on how to open it...haha. I'm still figuring out how to explain the first part — which is the key feature of this box. Just writing it in words isn’t very easy to understand, so I’m planning to include a diagram. But I’m not really used to making diagrams on the computer, so it’s taking some time...It looks like it’ll be ready for sale very soon!😅
