MSRaynsford

I used the patterns from these celtic knot dice  to create myself a piece of knotwork. The knot was then split into lots of pieces, alternating between cuts and lines on the knots so that even pieces with multiple sections look like they overlap each other. No two pieces are the same so I'm hoping this only goes together one way. ( svg here )

The ritual magic system in Vale  has different colours of magic to represent different things. This little dohicky shows what each kind is for, and also shows the rotation of magic around the great wheel. It's made of Birch and the grain from each section is aligned to point towards the centre. 0.8mm ply holds each of the mana crystals into place and because they're translucent you get a really nice shiny effect when you hold it up to the lights (It also helps to differentiate between the Pink/Red and Blue/Light Blue gems) 

Jigsaw puzzles are such a simple thing to laser cut I'm surprised I hadn't done one before. I took the vector artwork from Wikimedia and a nice picture of a rose to make this puzzle. I made this to add content to my puzzle instructable , it's part of a competition so if you wanted to go over there and vote for me it would be appreciated. ( svg here )

The sliding block puzzle was invented in the 1880s with the fifteen puzzle which simply had the numbers 1-15 on the blocks. My homage to this form of puzzle is the eight puzzle which is remarkably similar in concept but only uses 8 blocks which is a much more sensible prototype. You could also put any kind of picture you want on the top of the blocks. Each block is made up of 3 different layers, the middle layer is shifted right and up slightly to form an overlapping section with the block next to it. Where the tiles overlap the surfaces have been engraved, this reduces the thickness of the material and makes it slide easily in the gaps. The edge of the puzzle also have 3 layers which is staggered in a similar fashion. The edge is backed like the other tray puzzles and this stops the pieces from falling out of the middle. The edge is a single solid piece, because of this the last row of blocks has to be glued into place inside the puzzle so be careful not to spread the glue o

The aim of this final puzzle is to remove the ring from the column. ( svg here ) While I was making puzzles I took the opportunity to remake some of these very old puzzles from 2012 in 6mm ply. I also got some better photos of them.

In this puzzle you have to get the ring from one side of the puzzle to the other. I probably should have marked the arms differently to make it more obvious that the puzzle wasn't just flipped. ( svg here )

I made this simple little entanglement puzzle, they seem to appear around Christmas time and with some craft fairs coming up I was wondering if I should add some toys to my selection. It could ideally do with thicker string but it's functional and sturdy. The aim of the game is to separate the two parts. ( svg here )

Anyone of a nervous disposition should look away now. I moved our Lego storage coffee table  from the lounge to the sun room and I tried to wedge it into the corner there. Unfortunately the bottom drawer wouldn't open because of the foam matting and I really didn't want to cut away the matting so I added some feet to lift the table above it. Annoyingly if I lift the front above the foam the back wedges under the window sill and the front overlaps the matts slightly so I had to get creative. The front feet ended up being taller than the back feet and they're not the same size as the table leg so it can overlap. I told you it was ugly but it is at least functional.

Scaling up for production is rarely as easy as just making 20x the same thing. In this case I was asked to make 20 of the moving BB8 cake heads . I changed the design in several places to make assembly easier, switched out the controller for a different arduino (and then changed it back again) and finally rewrote the control code to make it more obvious that all the functions were working correctly. It's been a bit of a long slog this weekend but seeing them all lined up on bench this morning was pretty rewarding and I can't wait to see them all when they're done in cake.

I wanted 3 different sizes of porthole for my project and multiple holes too so I changed the scale on a few things and tweaked the designs to come up with these two different sizes. Here are the 3 modified porthole drawings 100mm window, 220mm window and 290mm window ( svg1 , svg2 and sv g3 )