Craft Stick Puzzle Box 1

I wanted to make a puzzle box, but since I'm at college I don't have access to the electric tools I would normally use. I came up with a slider mechanism I could make with popsicle sticks, and the project grew from there. I've made puzzle boxes before, but this is the first one that is entirely my own design.

I like this design because it has plenty of room on the inside, but it still takes several steps to unlock. I chose not to put a protective layer on the inside of the box, so there is a risk that whatever you put in there will jam the mechanisms. There isn't a downside to this besides having a little less room on the inside, I just didn't.

Supplies

The only required materials are the sticks, glue, and knife. Everything else is there to make things easier.

• Popsicle sticks (obviously)
• Elmer's glue
• Glue application tool (cheap paintbrush, toothpick, etc )
• Utility knife (or something else to cut the sticks with, like a palm-sized chop saw)
• Masking tape
• Sandpaper (I used 220 grit, and it worked great)
• Small carpenter's square (I 3D printed one, about 3 inches to a side)
• Pen knife (For whittling away mistakes. Safer and allows for finer control than the utility knife.)

Step 1: Stick Analysis

Consider the stick:

• L is the length. It is the largest dimension.
• W is the width. It is the second-largest dimension.
• T is the thickness, the smallest dimension.

The box has 5 sticks to a side, and has a volleyball-like appearance. This results in a box where all edges of the cube are accounted for, but none of the corners are. On the edges, the short-end side of the cube overtakes the long-edged side.

Almost all of your cuts will be shortening the length. This is why popsicle sticks are so great; there is less cutting and sanding involved, which are the most labor and time intensive parts of making a puzzle box. What would normally take weeks can be done in days. 

Most of the sticks are one of two lengths:

•  5W+2T: These form the outer layer of the box. Err on being too long.
•  5W-2T: These form the second, inner layer of the box. Err on being too short.

Step 2: Tips

• Don't cut your fingers. Also, make sure the utility knife is pointed away from your palm before extending the blade.
• Never measure using a ruler. Measure by lining up stick scraps.
• When measuring, be careful that the rounded length of the stick you're using to measure doesn't throw off the measurement.
• Masking tape can help keep things aligned temporarily.
• Using Elmer's glue ensures that you can usually undo stuff if you mess up. None of my sliders were glued perfectly, so I would argue against using wood glue.
• Measuring by lining up sticks can be cumbersome. Tape can help keep things together, but be careful not to let it bunch up and add too much to your measurement.
• Consider making a dedicated stencil stick for a specific measurement. Be careful not to play telephone with your stick lengths.
• Cutting multiple sticks at once is often better, since it's easier to keep a grip on it.

Step 3: Choosing Linear Vs. Split Paths

Each panel (except for the first) is unlocked by the previous, and (except for the lid) unlocks the next panel.

I was already mostly done with the box when I discovered a problem. I wanted to have every side of the box be a slider, but I also wanted to have each slider to have exactly one input and one output. To resolve this, I made one side of the box just a regular panel instead of a slider. I felt that having a split path would have been too complicated.

Step 4: Cutting

Cut 5 "outer layer" sticks (5W+2T) and 4 "inner layer" sticks (5W-2T). Remember, it's better to cut the outer layer sticks too long rather than too short, and the inner layer sticks are the opposite.

For the sticks I had, I was able to barely get 2 outer layer sticks for each full stick.

Step 5: Marking

1. Of the two cuts you made, find the rougher of the two.
2. Draw a border of 1T around the entire panel, EXCEPT the rough side.
3. Measuring from the smoother cut, make more marks at:
4. T+W
5. T+2W
6. T+3W
7. T+4W
8. T+5W
9. This should fill the entire panel, and your last line should be roughly 1T from the edge. The sanding we'll do at the end will fix this.
10. Mark the squares where the glue will go. This is important. This is what makes the sliders slide.

Step 6: Gluing

Fill in each square with glue. You want enough that it will stick, but not too much or else it will squish out spread where you don't want it.

MARK WHICH IS THE SLIDING PIECE. I keep forgetting to do this, and I keep regretting it. The moving piece is the one that is glued at two points instead of three.

In the column with no glue points, place a stick as a spacer. Use the border you drew as a guide to help you center the layers. The important part is that all the sticks are pressed snugly against other sticks of the same layer.

Try not to let the sticks slide around to much as you're gluing them, so that glue doesn't get where it's not supposed to.

When the glue is dry, it is very unlikely that your slider will move freely. Run the utility knife lightly through the cracks where each stick touches another of the same layer. Don't forget to remove the spacer. Try to slide the blade through each square where there shouldn't be glue. DON'T twist the blade while doing this, or the whole bar will pop off. If you've done all this and it still doesn't move, just keep applying pressure in the direction it's supposed to slide until it starts working or it breaks.

Step 7: Make the Other Sliders

Repeat steps 4-6 until you have enough sliders. If you are doing a linear path, you need 4 sliders and 1 regular panel (same as a slider, except everything is glued together). if you chose to have a split path, you need 5 sliders. Now all we need to do is link the sliders together.

Step 8: Assembly Part 1 - Marking

Whenever we join two panels together, we also need to add two small pieces. While both of these pieces technically have exact measurements, I highly recommend marking the lengths while they're in position.

• The stopper (length of 2W): This lets a slider in the locked position prevent another slider from unlocking.
• The extender (length of W-T): This ensures that a slider must be fully unlocked before the next slider can unlock. Without it, each slider would only need to slide T distance instead of the full W.

If you're having trouble visualizing how the sliders fit together, it might be worth building a test cube to draw on.

A tip for gluing: whenever you glue sticks together to make a corner, it can help to put a dab of glue on the inside corner to provide some extra strength.

I'll call slider A the one that allows slider B to unlock. In most of the pictures, slider A is the one lying flat against the table.

The first thing you want to to is mark your glue spots. On slider A, mark where the stopper will go, along with the square where the glue will go. See the picture on how to do this.

Step 9: Assembly Part 2 - Gluing

Glue the sliders A and B together. Use the lines you drew to make sure that B is centered on A. When you view the cube from the outside, the short edges of slider A should be visible. Looking from the inside, the inner layer of B should be resting on the inner layer of A when A is face down as shown in the pictures. Make sure not to glue any moving parts together

Step 10: Assembly Part 3 - Stopper

Glue in the stopper - Put both A and B in the locked position, and place the stopper so that is goes through the inner layer and is touching the outer layer of B. You might have to sand the edges and corners of the stopper to make it fit. Glue to A's sliding piece.

Step 11: Assembly Part 4 - Extender

Glue in the extender - Put both A and B in the unlocked position. Place the extender in the gap between B's sliding piece and the stopper. Sand the extender if it's too big for the space. If it's a little loose, it's ok. Glue to B's sliding piece.

Continue to chain them together until you have a 5 sided box. I didn't really map out how they would all fit together. The important part is that the final sliding piece slides across from the lid, not towards/away from it. This means that the short edge of the lid panel will overtake the edge of the final sliding panel.

Step 12: The Lid Part 1 - Making the Lid

There are two parts to the lid: the back latch and the front latch. In the photos, the left side is the back latch, and the right is the front latch.

This is where things get tricky. You need to create a stick 5W-2T long, and half a width wide. I've tried to avoid lengthwise cuts while building this, but this is necessary.

For the lid you will need:

• 5 outer layer sticks (5W+2T)
• 4 Inner layer sticks (5W-2T)
• 1 additional inner layer stick, cut in half lengthwise (you need two halves)
• 3 sticks of length W (squares)
• 1 stick of length 1.5W

Cut 5 outer layer sticks and tape them together like you did when you made the other panels. First, draw the border of T as usual.

The following measurements are all measured from the edge that comes before it. See the photos for notes.

From left to right, draw lines at:

• T (The normal border)
• T + 1/2 W
• W

From right to left, draw lines at:

• T (The normal border)
• W+T
• W

In the two W sized spaces, glue inner layer sticks. This part doesn't slide, so you don't need to worry about not gluing on certain squares. On the left side, glue another inner layer stick directly on top of the last one. Once that is dry, take that last inner layer stick and one of the halves of the lengthwise cut stick and glue them on top of the double stacked stick as shown in the picture. The bigger stick should hang over the edge , and the half stick should be flush with the edge.

Take the three small square sticks and glue them on top of each other. Take the 1.5W length stick and glue it on top of that, making sure that three of the four edges are flush. Once that is dry, glue it on top of the inner layer stick on the right. Make sure to align it with the outer layer stick that is second from the bottom, not the center.

Step 13: The Lid Part 2 - Making the Box Fit the Lid

Locate the final slider in your box. When the open side of the box is facing upward, the final slider should slide left and right, not up and down. If it doesn't, you need to reassemble your box.

For the front latch glue 3 W length squares together, and sand the sides smooth. glue this to the sliding piece of the final slider, with the top of the block flush with the top of the inner layer. The block should slide into the lid's overhang when you put the final slider into the locked position.

For the back latch, Take the inner layer stick you cut in half from the last step, and glue it opposite the front latch. Again, make sure it it flush with the top of the inner layer. Make sure you aren't gluing it to moving pieces. It might be a tight fit, so you could have to sand it a little.

Removing the lid requires you to slide the lid forward, then lift it up. To put it on, you just have to do the opposite. I can all but guarantee you that this is going to take a generous amount of sanding and whittling to work, but be patient. When it's finished, you won't be able to tell the lid from any other side of the box.

Step 14: Sanding

If you cut the outer layer sticks a little long at the beginning, this is where we sand them down. I did this by placing the sandpaper on the table, and sanding the edges of the cube face down. Make sure that the rest of the cube isn't touching the sandpaper. When the white marks on the sandpaper reach the edge of the sandpaper, you know the edges of the cube are flush with the sides.

Step 15: Finished!

That's it! Enjoy your puzzle box.