arrival of the 3D printer
An excerpt from George Miller of Puzzle Palace (www.puzzlepalace.com). 3D printers have introduced a whole new genre of puzzles. These are puzzles freed from the constricts of machinablity. Nob Yoshigahara calls them uncastable. I was fortunate enough to see such a 3D printer in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry one day, Oskar van Deventer excitedly took me by the arm and led me to this machine. We stood in total awe of this machine which was slowly, almost molecule by molecule, building the case for a child’s toy. There was a video above the machine showing the construction in fast motion. A print head would sweep over the platform laying down a very thin layer of plastic (ABS) over the previous layer.
One by one the layers would stack up until the entire piece was built. The machine was like a giant, sophisticated glue gun. It had two nozzles: one spewed the plastic material in any color (just choose one color) you wanted. The other nozzle spewed a support material which could easily be broken away after the build was complete. We asked the name of this fantastic machine (Dimension – http://www.protopulsion.com/) and both wished we had one.
On impulse I decided to buy the machine shortly thereafter from Phillip Trinidad at ProtoPulsion in Redwood City, CA (www.protopulison.com). I installed the machine in my printshop and almost from the time I had it powered on, Oskar was sending me complex, intensely three-dimensional puzzles. He was using a program called Rhino to design the puzzles so it was very easy for me to convert to the format the 3D printer needed (.stl) and print off a copy of his puzzle. The first puzzle he sent me was Tube Maze. It took a lot of trial and error to get the process down and produce good puzzles. When I finally got the knack, the puzzles coming out of the machine were fantastic! Also, it takes only hours build a single puzzle. Though this is not a mass production device, some puzzles are so complex that they can only be made on the ProtoPulsion Dimension 3D Printer. For other less complex puzzles, it is meant mainly for producing a prototype. One then takes the prototype to a caster who makes a mold from the plastic prototype and then pours tin or epoxy into the mold to form, repeatedly, pieces.
However, Oskar was sending me puzzles so twisted that they defied being molded. I decided to sell these puzzles on Puzzle Palace (www.puzzlepalace.com). They are very expensive. I can’t make up a whole bunch in advance and have them on my shelves as inventory. Although I am stating that I have 100 in inventory for each puzzle in the collection, in truth, I have none in inventory and will only start making a puzzle in the Oskars Exotic Collection upon the receipt of an order. There will only be 100 of each puzzle sold. So, this collection is a limited edition.
In March, 2004 Oskar came to visit me and discuss the production of the Oskar’s Exotic collection. Here we are in the Puzzle Palace workshop discussing some of the finer points of the collection. Once Oskar learned how to use the 3-D Printer, he was up all hours of the night feeding it new ideas and reels of material. We hope some day to have a vast collection of very unique puzzles. Click here to find out more about 3D printing at the Puzzle Palace.