Shawn Blog

Lake Tahoe Puzzle

A while back, I got the wild idea to see if I could use the Glowforge to make a custom puzzle. From there it spun into a multi-layered beast that represented the depth of Lake Tahoe.

The one thing I knew from the beginning was that the hardest part was going to be designing the puzzle pieces. Luckily, there are multiple SVG puzzle generators online so I was saved. I went with this one since it produced the best results for my use case.

This is what I used as the baseline for each layer
Original depth map that I subsequentially simplified
Separating the cuts for the pieces and outlines since they’ll be cut on different materials
Final top outline design. The red letter would be cut out of transparent blue and placed in the cutouts
Original chipboard test of pieces. This made me realize that my designs were WAY too small
Chipboard tests for the various layers. A lot of changes came out of this
Chipboard outlines test. I love how this turned out
Cutting the pieces out of transparent dark blue
Left to right: Dark blue cut pieces, chipboard test layers, MDF outlines with temporary top layer
Final MDF base layer with final pieces
Final MDF base+1 layer with final pieces
Final MDF base+2 layer with original pieces. I plan on recutting the pieces out of a nice transparent teal to make it look nicer
Temp MDF top layer while layering the final pieces in
Temp MDF top layer with final pieces in
Final top with all pieces in including the original base+2 layer pieces

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