the centrifugal puzzle

Do you want to wow your friends,
Do you like working with wood,
Do you enjoy brain teasers,

if so read on...

Everyone likes a good brain  teaser every once in a wile. A puzzle that can frustrate the most powerful minds, yet has simple solution. The centrifugal puzzle can do that!

Step 1: Things you will need

You will need 2, 2cm x 3.5cm blocks of wood around 30cm long,
2 small dowels,
2 drill bits, one for the screw and one slightly larger than the dowel rod,
A drill,
A scroll saw,
A scroll saw blade.

Comments

[bfk]

Nice "ibble", but I have to agree with Rob O. Perhaps, a spline at the cut would solve the strength issue. Simply set the cut ends of the cut portion upright on a table saw and run them through the blade. Glue a 1/8" spline into the slot of one and use that to fit and glue into the other. A very strong joint that looks good too.

All-in-all, this sure beats the traditional way of separately cutting and glueing all the pieces together.

I also use steel welding rod as the pins. This provides 2 educational ways to solve this puzzle... Centrifugal force and magnetic force.

[Rob O]

I think there is a flaw in this cut and glue back together approach. You cut one of the pieces of the puzzle in half and then glue together. Doesnt that make the puzzle structurally weaker?

In the other, better, previous ible you use square dowels and then assemble them together. It gives you a much greater area to glue together, that won;t get torqued like this approach.

[tpartic-gray]

not if you use a hot glue gun

[cobalt420]

I did not put this in the ible but I put a screw in.\

can you go to the launch it chalenge click entries and vote for my baseball launchit contest entry.

thanks

tell your friends to vote for mee too!!

[dombeef]

There already is an older instructable that is like this : http://www.instructables.com/id/Wooden-Centrifugal-Puzzle/

[Rob O]

Yeah, I made these for Xmas 2010 based on LAST YEARS instructible.
I substituted pieces of brass tubes instead of dowels. It looked really cool.

I think using a scroll saw it a more difficult way to do this. Use the other ible.

[dombeef]

And the person that is the owner of this instructable isnt even commenting on this, he is just trying to bring it down so people dont see it.

[cobalt420]

not realy actualy,
look at me and phill b's coments below,
its hard to comment on soo much stuff with ten other ibles,
he's chill about it,
calm down bud.

[dombeef]

Yeah, sorry, that was before that, I saw you comment on other people's comments after I made that comment, but now you are talking to him, sorry about that. And I didn't see how it was different, now I know.

[cobalt420]

thanks for understandind :D

[Phil B]

he is just trying to bring it down so people don't see it.

Actually, I am not trying to hinder cobalt420 and his Instructable showing his method for making one of these puzzles. I am only surprised that my Instructable does not show in the list of Related Instructables.    

[cobalt420]

hi phil b,

sorry about all the confution,
would you like me to put a link to your ible on my ible?

Thanks,

Cobalt420

[Phil B]

You really do not need to do that. One of the earlier comments includes a link to it. If I do an Instructable and am aware (key word in this equation) of an earlier similar Instructable, I usually give a link to it; but, I also then explain how my Instructable will be different. There is no rule, written or unwritten, that says anyone cannot do a new version of older Instructables. Each person has his own twist he adds. For example, you begin with solid pieces of wood and cut them apart with your scroll saw. Then you glue the halves back together. That is your own unique contribution. Also, that puzzle is certainly not original with me. I copied one made by a friend. Ultimately, these puzzles go back to a Japanese puzzle maker. To answer your question below, I do not believe I put mine in the puzzle category.

I wish you much success with all of your Instructables.

[cobalt420]

Thanks,

you did not put it in the puzzle spot so thats why (i think) its not showing up.

thanks,

cobalt420

[dombeef]

Yeah, that is odd, but he spelt centrifugal wrong, that could be why

[Phil B]

Yes, he spelled 'centrifugal' incorrectly, but I went back to my Instructable and added his incorrect spelling to the list of keywords. Still, my Instructable has not appeared in the Related Instructables. Sometimes strange things happen at the Instructables site. ;-)

[cobalt420]

did you put your ible on the puzzles catagory?

[dombeef]

Hmm, maybe it has to take a while for the keywords to set in?

[Arbitror]

...which was already featured, last year...

[dombeef]

But it is basically the same design

[Arbitror]

(removed by author or community request)

[dombeef]

And look, it was in the newsletter and featured!

[mgauvin8810]

My uncle had a cube which was made of two pieces (looked like a rubiks cube). to seperate them, you had to put it on one of the corners and spin it like a top and it would fly apart. Pretty cool.

[cobalt420]

thats cool,

can you go to the launch it chalenge click entries and vote for my baseball launchit contest entry.

thanks

[Microbe]

Knock it off with the self promotion already...sheesh

[Reki3]

Some people have no shame. Besides the constant self-promotion, this has also been posted many times before, even if this does use round wooden dowels instead of copper tubes or square dowels.

[Rich99]

OTOH... cobalt should not bear sooo much criticism.

he might have never seen the other, earlier ible, and learned this from his grandfather or something like that. and he just wanted to join in the contributory spirit of this website.

he may not use english as his primary language. but i thought he presented a well made ible, good pix, good little yellow boxes where appropriate.

sure he's a self-promoter, but he's immune to criticism, evidenced by his repeated cut-and-paste comments. it's good to have a thick skin...

as a tinkerer myself, i'm gonna go vote for his ibles, and wish i had the wherewithal to submit an ible as good as mr. 420's.

or maybe he was just really stoned. good for him.

[cobalt420]

Thankyou so much rich99

well said

what do I have to do to change the bad spelling?

sincerely cobalt 420

[Rich99]

not that there's anything wrong with that.

[Rich99]

inre mr. 420's spelling and grammar skills... a stoner, methinks.

[squirrelMLM]

I'm sorry if this is just me but could you fix the spelling in this instructable? Not to be picky or anything but it is really hard to read... Otherwise great instructable!

[cobalt420]

hi,

can you go to the launch it chalenge click entries and vote for my baseball launchit contest entry.

thanks

tell your friends to vote for mee too!!

[Timbhu]

but once the pins disengage how do i reset the puzzle ?
You know , for another friend perhaps :)

[cobalt420]

hi,

can you go to the launch it chalenge click entries and vote for my baseball launchit contest entry.

thanks

[cobalt420]

put the two pices bace together and shake it up!!!

[Timbhu]

thanks dude , a real brain-teaser for those brainy friends :)

[cobalt420]

no prob,

rate 5 and subscribe and there will be more cool contraptions.

Thanks,

~Cobalt420

[OziRay]

Great puzzle however I am confused by the spelling and some of the terminology.

Thanks