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Our new puzzle table is large enough for
pretty much any puzzle we can throw at it.
Here is the section of life we are working on
all laid out for the first time. As you can see,
M is starting on the animals. |
Today we finally built the puzzle table! It was not without its difficulties as apparently the builder of our place didn't give a shit about placing studs on any particular standard (I guess he was German and just decided 24 inches was good enough, but where it mattered to us, picked 21 cause apparently it was convenient...
Anyhow, the puzzle table is up and working. We may redo the top cause its not as sturdy as we were hoping for (flexes too much). We tried to make it as light as possible and still be strong.
In summary, we started with 1/8inch plywood (the same stuff our puzzle boards are made of) 84in x 48in and screwed in a frame of synthetic wood (1x2in). In the ceiling we found studs and inserted 4 hooks and hung 4 pulleys from them.
We drilled holes in the table, then lead ropes from each corner of the table, to their respective pulleys and led all the ropes through an eye hook (also in a stud) and down to a cleat (think sailboat).
The result is a table we can raise to the ceiling when not in use! We are so happy with it. We can puzzle in bed, work together facing each other and raise one side for seriously comfortable extended sessions!
In other news, we started on the mini 500 piece Machu Picchu and it just pegged our difficulty scale! This little 5 dollar puzzle will kick your ass! I had an entire section in the wrong place and I have never had to back track so many times while doing the cloud filled sky. Just assembling the border would send most people crying for their mother! If you are looking for a challenge, go for it!
Enjoy the pics and video!
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| Machu Picchu mini 500 puzzle piece shown with a piece of Life... It's a lot smaller! |
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| I seriously almost gave up on this puzzle. It is so hard. Here you can see its no bigger than a sheet of paper! M did the border and the lower parts while I did the sky. Did I mention this puzzle is hard? |
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| First thing is first, where the F is the stud... It is NOT where it should be. |
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| Screwing the frame to the top |
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| We put four hooks in the ceiling with pulleys. |
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| You can see the frame, very simple. We are going to redo this with stronger wood eventually. We tried to make it as light as possible but turns out it warps too much. Once we get the final table, we will glue a completed puzzle to the bottom so when its up, we can see a puzzle! |
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| After hooking up the lines to the end, we ran all the lines to the eye and down to a cleat. |
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| We feed each line through a hole in the top and tied a double figure eight stopper knot to keep it from coming back through. |
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| My amazing wife with our shiny new puzzle table in place! We can now puzzle and have sex in bed! |
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| M is actually in the table. No, ok, just kidding. This is how its stored when we don't want to puzzle (which is not often) |
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| This is my favorite part! Since each corner is on it's own rope, you can angle the table for serious puzzling! It feels so good to sit here! |
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| So Yeah.... lets hope my drywall skills are as good as my puzzling. Seriously WTF is the stud? |
