Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Cooksey Tribute D re-colored

Last year I built a brightly-colored version of Oskar van Deventer's Cooksey Tribute D puzzle by building it with transparent material and filling the interior with bright acrylic paint.  It was pretty but the transparent maze was virtually invisible, which totally defeated the purpose of the transparent collars I had built for the Cooksey Tribute puzzles a year earlier.

Oskar painstakingly painted the surface of the maze with black paint so it could be seen through the collar.  That worked, and it was practical, but I tried a different method...

Using a 49-gauge needle and a squeeze bottle, I applied paint inside the channels while leaving the raised maze unpainted.

The unpainted maze stands out in clear contrast to the brightly-painted background, so the maze can be seen through the transparent collar.

This video illustrates the benefits of the new paint job compared to the previous one.  I put an animated light inside for a little extra effect!

A side effect of this new paint scheme: light shines through the maze when the puzzle is back-lighted.

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