Beginner's Set for Vintage Brio Labyrinth Puzzle Game

My granddaughters slowly become old enough (no, 'slowly' isn't right – unfortunately, they grow much too fast for my taste) to play with the old Brio labyrinth puzzle game my brother had when he was a kid. In case you should have tried that once, you will know that it is rather tricky.

There are, however, two additional, somewhat easier labyrinth platforms available. They are called 'Beginner's Set', and are placed on top of the most difficult, basic labyrinth platform. They are labeled 'for kids between 4 and 99' – it's good to know that even I am allowed to play with them for some years :-)

After having found the old labyrinth game in the attic I soon realized that some of the nails connecting the playing platform and the gimbal had become loose – no wonder, this unit dates from about 1970 and thus is more than 50 years old! Fortunately, taking it apart and re-glueing the loose wooden pieces was rather easy – I used some white wood glue and several C-clamps to fix all of it until the glue was dry.

But – there is a big BUT! I remember that my brother also had the two easier beginner's platforms. Unfortunately they seem to be lost – and playing the highest level right from the start would for sure be frustrating for kids, even if they're as clever as my granddaughters.

Still no problem, I thought. The Brio manufacturer still exists, and both this labyrinth puzzle game as well as matching beginner's sets are still available in toy shops or, e.g., from Amazon. So I purchased a beginner's set. In fact, I even purchased two of them – first, the top-modern one (order no. 34030) that features the ugly, dark brown, plastic partitions, and then an earlier 'new old stock' set that has the much nicer wooden partitions (order no. 35313). But a still bigger BUT was looming around the corner, and with both sets, at that! It seems that the design of the labyrinth puzzle game was slightly changed sometime during the last 50 years. Not by very much – but the current beginners platforms are shorter than the old ones by 7 mm (about ¼"), and some of the holes don't correspond with the ones in the basic platform below, preventing the steel ball from dropping through completely.

Murphy's law, anyone?

Anyway, producing a matching DIY beginner's set isn't exactly rocket science. Fortunately, I had traced the outline and the positions of the holes using the old labyrinth's base platform while the game was disassembled for repair.

Now it was rather easy scanning this coarse drawing, placing it into a vector graphics software (such as Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, or whatever) and – on a separate drawing layer – matching it with photographs of the beginner's set that can be found in the internet. So I could recreate plans for the old, original set.

If you should happen to own such a vintage Brio labyrinth puzzle game and want to produce fitting beginner's platforms, as I did, you will need the following materials and tools:

1. A printout of the PDF plans provided here (see Step 1)
2. 2 pcs. of 3 mm thick beaver board, size 274 x 228 mm (in my country this is called 'Hartfaserplatte' and was also known under the 'Pavatex' brand name; it's rather similar to MDF, by the way). This material is available with either one or two smooth faces; the type with only one smooth face is sufficient for this purpose
3. some adhesive tape
4. about 3.5 m of wooden strips with a square cross section of about 4 x 4 or 5 x 5 mm
5. some all-purpose adhesive (such as 'UHU Alleskleber' or 'Miocoll Universalkleber') that contains solvents and therefor bonds rather quickly
6. access to a band saw and a disc-type sander - if not available, some hand tools and patience will be ok
7. an awl
8. a power drill (better: access to a drill press) with a 15 mm dia. auger bit, or, even better:
9. a 15 mm dia. hole punch

Since both platforms of the beginner's set are somewhat larger than both DIN A4 or ANSI A ('letter') size, you cannot print the provided drawings on a standard size sheet. If you happen to own an A3-size printer, just go ahead. If not, print them in two steps on two A4 (or letter) size sheets; the single A3- and dual A4-size versions are provided in the attached PDF file, so you can select whichever you prefer.

Make sure to select 'Page Scaling: None' in the printer dialog in order to get the correct size of the plans. Then fit and stick them together with adhesive tape.

Crop the plans along their contour and stick them to your pieces of beaver board with some adhesive tape. You can now mark the centers of the holes and also the start/end points of the partitions through the paper using your awl. After having removed the printed sheets from the board, you may want to enhance the awl marks with a soft pencil.

This will tax your patience for a while: You need to cut the wooden strips into 72 (!) pieces of different length. You can take the respective dimensions from the printed drawings. After cutting, sand the ends in order to have them nice, square, and without burrs. This fortunately is not a high-precision task, it doesn't matter much if the pieces become some tenths of a millimeter longer or shorter. You even might cut and sand the pieces by hand, but they will get nicely square and somewhat smoother if you have a disc-type sander at hand.

Drill 15 mm dia. holes into the beaver boards according to the awl marks. If your auger drill bit is really sharp, this shouldn't be a problem. Mine was rather cheapo and produced a burr of about 0.5 mm height – not good. I had to sand that down which is difficult to be done nicely on the smooth surface of the beaver board.

In the second beaver board I drilled 8 mm dia. pilot holes, through which I then inserted the venerable 15 mm dia. hole punch from my toolbox. By using that punch the holes became clean and free from any burrs right from the start.

To do this, I recommend a permanent marker with a medium-width tip. If your hands are less shaky than mine, you can do that by hand according to the plans. Perhaps you better try it first with a soft pencil. Then trace the pencil line with the permanent marker. Allow to dry completely before removing any remaining pencil traces with a soft eraser.

This is the second test for your patience: You glue the first partition stick to one of the beaver boards at the desired position. No matter what kind of glue you use, don't apply too much (it might ooze out) or too little (the piece won't be fixed reliably). If you use a solvent-based adhesive, as I did, you might even lift the piece up again after having placed it in position, allowing the glue's solvent to evaporate somewhat faster. After placing it in position a second time, firmly press it down and let it rest until the glue is dry. Proceed with the remainder of the partitions – now there are only 71 of them left, anyway :-o

... but make sure to give the glue enough time to bond thoroughly before using your home-brew beginner's platforms. And then: Have fun!

BTW, the diameter of the current Brio steel balls is 12.81 mm (almost exactly ½ inch), but steel balls with a diameter between 10 and 14 mm should work nicely; in case the original steel balls have gone AWOL from your labyrinth, I'm sure you could use matching glass marbles as well.

I realized that the sticker with the early, beautiful black, red, and yellow BRIO logo was missing from the rear of the case. I could not find it in sufficient resolution in the internet and decided to redesign it in my vector graphics software. I had printed it in colour and then glued it to the labyrinth's wooden frame using a simple glue stick – you can see it in the rear-view photograph in step 7.

On top of that, I stumbled across the fact that my nickname, 'Robi', consists of the same characters as the 'BRIO' brand name, and I couldn't resist making some – more or less unobtrusive – 'ROBI' stickers with the same design for my DIY beginner's platforms - you can see them in the pictures in steps 6 and 7 if you fire up your reading glasses.

;-)