Other Projects

These galleries collect non-puzzle and experimental projects and may range anywhere from intricate fretwork to boxes to miscellaneous carvings and builds.

This piece was inspired by my dear cousin who we lost suddenly in April of 2017. Ryan was the most kind and generous soul I've ever met. He had a bottomless well of creativity which inspired everyone around him. I tried to capture his love for music, theater, and writing. The dry vase is made from cedar and finished with a coat of beeswax paste. 

Gallery coming soon

These teethers came about in an attempt to do a weekend project quite different than my usual puzzles and were completed in October 2016. Four of the five teether designs came from patterns in the Winter/Spring 2016 Issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts. The fifth, a Cy head (Iowa State University) was designed by myself. All teethers are cut from hard maple, rounded over with a 1/8" router bit, and sanded up to 220 grit with a sanding mop. No finish was applied in order for them to be as baby-friendly as possible. Once the teething phase is complete, they can be sanded to smooth out any teething marks and finished with a stain or painted as desired.

Each maze cube houses a hidden 3D maze through which a marble can be guided through from the entrance hole to the exit hole. The exteriors are each made of mitered 3/4" hardwood boards and the interior mazes are constructed from 1/8" Baltic Birch plywood. Both the difficulty and size of the mazes varies. The outside of these cubes is hand sanded through to at least 800 grit and finished with several coats of beeswax finish. 

The two smaller cubes in the gallery below measure  4-1/4" on each side and contain a 5x5x5 maze on the interior. The spalted maple cube is moderately difficult, with a some dead ends, while the sycamore cube is very difficult with many long dead ends and traps. The larger walnut cube measures roughly 8-1/4" on each side and contains a 10x10x10 maze. This difficulty of this maze is magnified due to both the size of the maze and the complexity of the maze. 

This is a small prototype box with a sliding lid featuring puzzle notches between the lid and main box. The box is made of 1/4" Baltic Birch for the sides and bottom and 1/8" Baltic Birch for the lid. The main box corners are all mitered and the lid slides along a routed 1/8" channel. 

Galleries