3D Printed Puzzle Box

Designed by:

Zan Martin & Garret Durr

7 Nails

Gorilla Glue

Clamps

3D printer

Filament

Spray Paint

Ruler

Starting off, it is important to come up with an idea of what you plan to make. Following this we searched for ideas for inspiration. We found a puzzle box that worked for us. We then started to daft up some design ideas to work with.

This stage we started by getting onto Fusion 360 and taking our first drafts, and putting them together. We fiddled with a few ideas and sizes and came up with a final design. We made all four parts separately and put them together in an assembly drawing.

The Box

The Lid

The Knob

The Nail holder

The Box is a 5" x 3" x 1.5" Container that holds anything that you can fit in it.

The Lid is a 4.5" x 2.5" x 1/2" Top to the box. This piece Holds the Nails Four nails That interlock with the ones in the Box.

The Knob is 1/2" at it's widest point and is 3/4" tall. It's glued onto the Lid using Gorilla glue. It acts as a handle so you can take the lid off.

The Nail Holder is a 2.5" x 1/2" x 1/4" Piece that sits in the Box, held in with Gorilla glue. This piece holds 3 nails inside that lock into the ones on the Lid.

For this we grabbed 7 nails of the same size and measured them at 2 1/4" long and plan to use them for the locking of the box.

During this step there is a lot of waiting and observing to make sure the print is going well. It is important to pay attention to avoid the following:

Print warping

Unlevel printing bed

Stray filament strings

filament is going through the extruder

After all the pieces are printed, we fit them together and make sure that at there is a proper amount of tolerance between each piece in the puzzle box. After the dry fit is done we grabbed the nails and made sure that they fit in the holes of the lid and box pieces. This is the dry fit stage in the construction of the puzzle box and next we move to the gluing part of the build.

This is where we had to carefully glue the pieces together in the specified locations. With improper placement, the box will not lock properly. Starting with the box, we glued it to the nail holder. Following this we glued the knob to the lid using gorilla glue. At this point we had to wait for the glue to dry which takes about 1-2 hours before any movement of the piece can occur. Finally, we can test the end product after the 7 nails are slid into the proper positions inside the box.

During this part we slid the nails into position and tested the lock of the box. As it is shown in the first video, the box will only open with the help of centripetal force and the laws of physics. After this we moved to spray painting the box.

This concludes the building of the puzzle lock box. Please comment any questions down below!