Hi, I'm Carl Fisk, and this is my '42 Cube'.
I've been intrigued with Japanese puzzle boxes for some time. I made a couple of plans that I bought from Bruce Viney (another box maker) but I had decided that I needed to make my own system.
This is the result of that effort.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcvgdDvN5kg

All panels have multiple layers that run on a rail system, with paths for the moving sliders to navigate.

One of my own creations on this is the hidden centripetal pin lock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yayby4asYYg&feature=related

Beautiful work, your effort really shows. These boxes are absolutely beautiful to me, each one shows the incredible work that it required.

Thank you sir. I think the most time consuming thing was fitting the exterior panels (rosewood) piece by piece. Namely getting the tolerances just right where they don't slide too easily, while actually making the mechanism more sturdy.

I was wondering if anyone could brainstorm with me on how to create a box that opened only after you spun it on its axes in a particular order? I'm thinking there has to be somewhere to overlap the pin mechanism in a way that it has to be done right, but I can't visualize it.

My second question for you folks is what kind of price I should put on one of these boxes if I decide to sell it? The base now takes me 20 some hours to build; and the exterior perhaps another 5, maybe more, depending...

I've just finished the interior base for my next one; i'll put a video up soon.

*EDIT
Pics of new box here:

Wow, very nice work! Figure your time is worth at least $20 US per hour. So $500 plus materials.
As you get faster at it, your time will decrease and I guess you could charge less and the quality will go up. You may want to hold on to your first few though just for sentimental reasons. That and when you become famous, it will be worth lots.

-d

That's a great piece of craftsmanship, and a very complex design. Do you really think that it would be solvable? It seems very difficult, but I'm not familiar with this type of puzzle.

Did you use any sort of 3D software to create this monster?

I'd be fine and happy with selling it off for $500. If I could churn out at least one every couple weeks, (and could find sellers) it'd be more than I'd make working minimum wage at a 40 hour a week job i suppose. Not that i'm going to quit mine to start making these full time....yet.



No 3D. Rough sketches for the independent sides, else it was all in my head. Basically I broke it down into a few parts: coming up with a design to just make the panels slide and not fall off, and then experimenting with this whole keyway design so you actually have mini sliders to move on each panel. The moves per panel are independent with each other (on the main 4) so it wasn't too difficult to visualize. (built one by one) The whole thing was being designed as it was built, so it took forever. Then I slapped on the centripetal side and the other slidey one (again experimenting with different slider types) as a bonus.

And yeah it's completely solvable. There are a couple dead ends though

Regarding difficulty; it's not too bad. Things are pretty linear, and there's one guessing spot involved. (2 out of 3 picks with lead you to dead end)
That is, if you can correctly figure out that you have to physically spin the box to start off...I've never seen anybody I let try it out even think of that yet. xD

The main thing with figuring out how to maximize move count on these is to make it so you have to work in reverse once you hit a certain point, this being done with pathways that snake back and forth. The reason why my new box hits so many moves is because it repeats itself many times over, and multiple sides must be 'solved' to reach certain further positions. I'd like to post pics to make it more understandable, but it seems as I didn't get any pics of that side xP.

That is brilliant. You are a true craftsman.

-Eitan

Thank you.

I know I'm asking a lot of questions here, but I have one more for today. If I did indeed put these out for $500, would there be interest around here for them?

Does movecount factor in to how much anybody would pay for one? (Assuming quality is the same?)

I'd think it would be to some extent...anything over 20 moves and it's still a challenge. 200 is almost excessive. It bothers me even to have to solve it.

TwistyPuzzles isn't the ideal crowd for such a puzzle, you might find a better audience at PuzzleWorld for this type. But it doesn't hurt to ask here, many of our members collect a wide range of puzzles.

Dave

This is amazing dude. The centripetal lock is really cool, definitely my favorite part of this puzzle. Great job!

Ben

Absolutely brilliant! I would buy it immediately if I could haha