Somewhere I saw, I think on a Japanese website, that someone was making Trajber's octahedra and other puzzles with sheets of PVC. I guess they would cut out little flat pieces of PVC sheet. They would saw off the angles of an existing puzzle, and glue or fuse the PVC. Has anybody ever heard of this method or tried it? Where would we get this kind of sheet plastic? Would we fuse it to the existing puzzle with heat or glue?

This site explains how to modify puzzles with PVC and acrylic plastic.

http://csx.jp/~3dpuzzle/sub2.html

Paste that link here:
http://www.excite.co.jp/world/url
(Select the second radio button and click on the gray button on the right to convert Japanese to English.)

Has anybody ever done this before?

This site also has a very nice section on how to modify puzzles by filling the insides of sawed off pieces with polyester resin.

How are you reading these Japanese sites? When I try and view them I have no idea what they are saying. Everything is in Japanese

I dont know where to get it, but PVC is used in piping. maybe they went to the japanese version of home depot and bought wide pipes (the wider, the flatter the surfaces are)

ahh.. yes.
the puzzle reconstruction studio.
i emailed them a few days ago about making me a Trajber Octahedron, Octaminx, 2x2x3, and a mental block.
I believe he wanted $250 for the mental block, and octaminx. $230 for teh Trajber Octahedron. and $170? for the octaminx.

you can use the translator at altavista.com
but, i emailed them to get the info. he speaks english

Great link, Carter.

I was asking Wynn (puzzlemeister1) about her construction methods, and she revealed to me that she buys pre-formed plastics from a retail store called "Tap Plastics" that she's lucky enough to have nearby. Here's their site:

http://www.tapplastics.com

Click "Shop" then "Plastics". Check out "Acrylic" and/or "Polycarbonate". That's the stuff were interested in, no doubt. I have no idea what the difference is between those plastics and PVC as far as we're concerned, but once you're talking to a pro, you can probably get those questions answered pretty quick.

This particular retailed is very very South-West US oriented, but I'm sure most of us in larger cities can find stores that sell this sort of stuff around. All it took was the idea to look!

Sandy

Go to this website
http://www.excite.co.jp/world/url
Paste or type the URL you want to translate into the box.
Select the second radio button.
Click on the gray button on the right.

It's great because when you select hyperlinks, all the pages are translated!

I've looked at that stuff, but what are you going to do with transparent polycarbonate sheet? And solid acyrlic cubes.... I don't know. It's not something that most people can cut or shape.

I suppose it depends what you are trying to do, but I think polystyrene sheet in 6 colours would be a lot better. Get the colour you want, and then die cut it. Also I think hollow polystyrene cubes would be better than solid acyrlic. Normal 5/8" coloured plastic tiles can be bought from Meffert. Now custom sized tiles would be nice for bandaged cubes of different forms, but getting out the ol' extacto knife and cutting 54 tiles is a lot of work.

For hollow cubes the Instant Sanity puzzle comes to mind. They are hollow, but already coloured. This is getting back into injection molding.

I went ahead and called them.
I ordered 350 pieces of 1/2 inch cubes, to make a 7x7 from a 5x5.

Guess what it cost...
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$70 or 20 cents each! (us)
+ shipping (which is approx. $15)
i will respond when i get the parts from them, he already said that my glue (Cyanoacrylate Ester) would bond to his parts.
Ill follow up next week when i get them. I was told that they were to be shipped out by the end of this week.
Some side notes:

The cubes will be cut from 1/2" sheet plastic, in 1/2 inch segments

1/2 inch is optimal for 5x5x5 addons (7x7x7!!!).
And a little too small for 4x4 addons (6x6x6).

I cant wait.
This will put off my plans for a cheese though, but i think this will only take me a few days to do (an hour each day. or until i get bored)
I hope i have enough glue (3/4 pound should be enough)

-Tyler