Exercise your Mind

We now have 50 Soma Cube puzzles completed. Well, completed in that all the wood working is done. I need to print out the labels (they’re designed) and we’re working on the way to shrink wrap them. If all goes well, that will be done this afternoon.

We got a bit of a time extension as it turns out that some “movie business” pushed filming back to mid-September and that gave us a little slack time. We could have easily pushed through to completely finish these in the original time if that had been required.

We have some extra maple Soma Cubes available and I’ve been working on some other puzzles. I’m heading out to the garage as soon as I’m done posting this to work on a couple of jigs so I can cut up that lumber that I bought at Paxton’s and we can start building up an inventory of puzzles.

Hopefully our participation in the movie will draw some attention and get us a good start in our little business.

I’ll keep you posted.

I get home and finish working my fulltime job then head out to the shop to process the alder I picked up for the boxes.

As a reminder, these were overages/not quite good enough molding culls from Paxton Woods that I paid $0.22/lineal foot to buy.

My thought was that I would be able to use the planer to cut off the slight raised parts and then split the remaining into two parts and build these boxes out of 3/16″ wood. It started out fine. I created great piles of alder shavings in the driveway. Yes, I had to move out of the garage as I just didn’t have enough room to run 10′ boards through the planer.

Once i got it down flat I determined that there wasn’t any way that I was going to run a 10′ board through the table saw to split it into two parts, so I cut it into 5′ sections. The first cut through the board (with it on its side) went OK, but when I flipped it over it didn’t go quite as well. Then when I flipped it again it became painfully obvious that this was not going to work.

Even if this board went OK, there was a 0% chance that the next 55′ would go as well. So on to plan B – i created more shavings and processed the alder down to 3/8″ like the other boxes we’ve built.

I’ll have to measure (it started to sprinkle so I cleaned up) to be sure I have enough to finish these boxes. If not I have the piece of 8/4 alder that I can resaw down to 7/16-1/2″ and run through the planer to finish up. I’d rather make cubes from it, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Just got back from Paxton’s Woods.

And like any addict, I want to brag about my “buy”

I hit up their “oops” rack for molding as when I was there before they had a bunch of alder molding that I can use for boxes for my puzzles. So there were 6 5/8 x 6 x 10 ft pieces and two 5/8 x 8 x 5 ft pieces of that. I also found hiding in there 6 7 foot and 1 9 foot 3/4 square oak “sticks”. That totaled a bit over $24 ($0.22/lineal foot.)

Then I hit the “scrap” bin. There I picked up 2.5 bd ft of hickory, 4 of alder (in an 8/4×4″ piece), 8.5 of maple, and another 3.5 of oak.

That ran me just under $9 ($0.50/bd ft.) Total.

I got a bunch of wood for $35 or so.

Now I have to figure out where to store it

There was a lot more there as well. Not sure why some of it was there, to be honest. Maybe just too short for them to use as molding.

The guy told me that once or twice a year there’s a guy that comes in and just buys the entire rack. He turns urns for pets so it doesn’t matter what the wood is, he just glues it up and turns away.

I had Friday off for the 4th of July holiday and I had planned on heading back to Paxton Woods to pick up that alder for the boxes. I figured I’d have a long weekend to build boxes for the puzzles. Since I had some running to do and one stop was close to Paxton’s, so took the truck and just figured that we’d stop by.

So we stopped by. And we were the only ones there.

They got Friday off for the holiday as well.

*sigh*

So I’m doing some site updates and I put all the pieces together for the Soma Cubes. We now have our 50 cubes all glued up and finished. I’m working on a sled so when I start processing the wood I pick up I can improve my accuracy.

So, not a wasted weekend – just a disappointing one.

So, I finally made it down to Paxton Woods this afternoon.

Amazing experience.

I’d been in a hardwood store before when we were buying oak for our banisters and such and they had a small area up front for woodworkers, so to speak. They’ve now moved and now only do commercial wood.

Paxton also does major commercial work, large quantities of wood, custom mouldings, etc but their “Woodworker’s Store” is *much*  better than Centennial’s was.
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Well, I was out in the garage cutting up the remainder of our prepared wood. About time to go out and pick up some more material. I cut up some walnut, a stick of maple, and a little bit of cherry.

I also worked out how to make the boxes. The 45 degree router bit makes the edges really clean and all I need is a bit of blue tape to “clamp” it all together until it dries. Currently we’re having a discussion on how to finish the boxes – whether to do something wild and crazy, make a signature box or to be more sedate. Stay tuned for that one.
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Well, it’s not actually an order, but it is our first big job.

I’m friends with a former morning show host here in Denver. Last fall one of those “radio things” happened and she’s moved on to other things. One of those things is appearing in a movie called Section B. Well, a bit more than appearing, but that’s her story to tell (you can find out more about the movie and Jennifer, by checking out IMDB.)

We’ve kept in touch and when I saw that Section B was looking for Colorado items for the wrap party gift bags, I sent her an email to find out how all this stuff worked. I thought that if it did work out we’d be able to show off some of our craftsmanship and get some practice making our puzzles.

Obviously I’d not be posting this if things hadn’t worked out. Right now we have 6 Soma Cubes cut, assembled, and finished. There are another 25 that are cut an assembled, not yet finished. There are a few more cherry ones and even a walnut one or two.

I still have to make the boxes for them, but we’re well on our way and should have them finished in plenty of time. We’ll be adding some pictures later on just so you can see what a stack of 50 Soma Cubes looks like (hmmm, that’s almost enough enough to make 6 Super Soma Cubes, soma cubes made of soma cubes i

Last night I cut up the last of the prepared maple I have.

You can tell that I’m a programmer by trade. I ended up with two blisters from about 90 minutes of cutting.  One I can sort of understand, it’s on the pad of my right index finger. That’s where I was using a piece of wood to hold down the cutoff cube so it didn’t spin back into the blade.

The other I didn’t discover until I took a closer look to see why my finger was hurting. Somehow I managed to create and pop a blister on the knuckle closest to the end of my finger on that same finger. [Read more →]

We’ve decided to try and make a go of this puzzle business.

We build wooden puzzles from domestic and exotic hardwoods. At the moment we’re concentrating on building puzzles like Soma Cubes and Pentominos. Those puzzles that are created from cubes. [Read more →]