Making Puzzle Boxes

By: Randal Gatewood

      From time to time, I am asked how do I make puzzle boxes.  "Where do you get the ideas?", is another common question. These are very difficult questions requiring lengthy complex answers. I've contemplated writing a more detailed page on this subject and decided it best to to leave the writing to the writers and I'll stick to building the puzzle boxes. What I have done here is try to provide a little insight for anyone with the interest in puzzle box building. I have yet to find any books that detail making puzzle boxes specifically though there are a number books on the subject of making wooden puzzles. Some are listed at the bottom of this page. 

    The art of puzzle box designing and building is truly unique as compared to any other type of woodworking that you might attempt. I've tried my hand at many phases of wood working over the years including: custom furniture, wood turnings, guitar restoration to building custom aircraft cabinets (a previous profession). Nothing really compares to making puzzle boxes. It is more like being a wood machinist in the sense that a lot of the measuring tools and techniques used by machinist will apply here also. Tools such as dial (or digital) calipers, machinist straight edges and micrometers, to name a few, must be used to maintain the tight tolerances that are required. I try to keep a tolerance finer than a human hair (about .005" - five thousands of an inch) with my puzzle boxes. In fact, maintaining cuts within .001 to .002 is not uncommon nor is it very easy to do.

    What you will definitely need is your basic shop equipment and hand tools along with some tools that you normally wouldn't see in a wood shop such as the machinist measuring tools as previously mentioned.  And, we don't want to forget those tools that you just can't buy - anywhere.  Those you will have to hand make yourself. Sleds, braces, jigs... what ever it takes to handle those special tasks for which there are no such tools available. I have constructed more of these tools in one year of puzzle box building than I ever had in over 25 years of wood working.  Everything is focused on achieving the one goal of absolute accuracy. In the Quagmire Puzzle Box shop, it is old school wood working all the way.
 

I can't emphasize enough that building quality mechanical puzzles requires extreme accuracy. It also requires the craftsman to really know their tools intimately. (Easy there!)  What I mean is, they must know each piece of equipment - as the cliché goes, "...like the back of my hand."  We're talking about things like, knowing every imperfection in the top of their saw's table or how far out of true, to the thousands of an inch, that the blade is on the saw's arbor in relations to the miter slots. You must also  know how to correct the imperfections.  The better your setup, the smooth and cleaner the cuts. And for the record, just because some guy has got a shop full of fancy tools, doesn't mean he's a craftsman by any means. It simply means that he had the money to buy some fancy tools. My table saw, jointer, radial arm saw, one of my scroll saws and most of my hand planes are all older than I am. (And I don't mean all of them collectively either!) It is the end product that comes from those tools that is the "tell all" to what kind of craftsman is operating them.
          I love new tools as much as the next guy. But like every new relationship, it takes time to get fully acquainted with a new tool in order to be efficient with it. This can only be gained from really using it. As much as I would enjoy, say...  a new table saw, there is that whole process of getting to know a new tool and all of its little idiosyncrasies. Over the years, I've used new name brand table saws of which I've found everything from inaccurate scales , to warped table tops. I've had my table saw for many, many years. It's about as old as I am (it is classified as vintage) and I've had the machine down to its arbor bearings a number of times and back together. I've spent hours using machinist straight edges, checking and adjusting the trueness of the surface of the top. It doesn't get much more intimate than that. And though it certainly has its idiosyncrasies, I know each and every one of them and I wouldn't trade the old saw for a new one. The point here is simple, evaluate what you do have before you spend all of your lunch money on new tools. You would be amazed at what and how far a little ingenuity will get you by.

        Designing these intricate puzzles is a whole other story that involves hours of contemplation, imagination, sketching, fabricating, jig building, and prototyping. And once that's been done, you must be able to put the whole process together in order to make more of your new creation - if that is your goal. As with my Double Crossed puzzle box, I made three prototypes before finally achieving what I was looking for. And even though three of these were made, a pile of little pieces of hand tooled wooden parts accumulated to the wayside as a result of the process; each piece representing many hours of hard work invested towards the attempt of perfect parts.

Here are a view books of interest from the real writers. Some may be out of print by the time of this reading but may possibly be found through online book stores:

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