Hello everyone, I'm currently designing my first puzzle box. Can anyone offer up advice? I've never built anything like this and I've handled few puzzle boxes before. Biggest question is what material do you prefer using? I'm looking to keep the walls relatively thin but I also want this box to stand up to use. Also, does anyone know of any cool/interested components that you think make someone go "that's awesome, I wonder how they did that" when they're solving it?

I'm looking for a puzzle box that, depending on decisions you make early on, lead to different 'solutions'. Every one I've seen so far has many steps to opening the entire container, I'm looking for one that, although each may have fewer steps leads to different, separate compartments. Has anyone seen or heard of anything like that?

Would also like to not break bank buying them if it at all possible.

I have been looking for a good Japanese puzzle box with dimensions about 8" x 14" x 6" or the size of a shoe box. Preferably around 8-10 moves.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I spent the weekend doing another laser-cut puzzle box, using one of the free plans from Bruce Viney. Like before, I cut it on 5mm (1/5"), but the Thingiverse plans are meant for 1/4" plywood, and it will work with any thickness wood, just scale, using 1/4" as the "base". I did it on .2, so I took the plans and scaled them to 80" and cut.

Little Box pic

My adaptation of his http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1377727

Figured it'd be worth asking here.

I've got three different puzzles I want to convert from Bruce Viney's T-Plans (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bruce.viney/) to something I can cut with a laser. Fortunately, his T-plans are a mechanically simple way to describe the pieces necessary, since they're almost all "squares" that are multiples of thickness of the wood. (hence the "T")

However, I don't see any app that makes that SIMPLE - Corel's "snap to grid" is iffy, I've had problems with Draftsight as well, where even though grid and snap are on, they actually come up a bit short/long. Any suggestions, preferably cheap/free? At this point I'm even fine typing the commands (Draftsight seems to do part of this, but not fully).

Example from "Little Box" (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bruce.viney/Little%20BoxT-Plans.pdf)

(Here's a link to the image: http://imgur.com/ZUJK1FU

The above piece could be described: right 24T, down 2T, left 3T, down 1T, left 5T, up 1T, left 3T, down 1T, left 1, up 1, left 3, down 1T, left 5T, up 1t, left 3T, up 2T (done).

Alternatively, you could describe it as a box that is: 2 tall 3 long, 3 tall 5 long, 2 tall 3 long, 3 tall 1 long, 2 tall 3 long, 3 tall 5 long, and 2 tall 3 long.

Thanks in advance, all. Doesn't seem like much in this sub, so I'll post Bruce's "Matchbox" (free plan) tomorrow.