Hello all,
Having wasted a half-hour or so over the last couple of weeks on the Google DaVinci code game, I got to thinking that it might be kind of fun to make one of the cryptex boxes from the book. Did a search on the Google archives, and it seems that it hadn't come up on this group, so I figured I'd throw it out for consideration.
Nobody really has a detailed plan for it that I could find, but I don't imagine they'd be that hard to make with a lathe and a bandsaw. I figure a guy could turn a tube (or maybe use a peice of pvc pipe, to save hollowing trouble,) and join a comb-shaped strip of hardwood to the top. Then turn as many rings as you want with a notch in them the width and depth of the aforementioned comb shaped strip of wood. Carve the letters you want over the notches to spell the code word, then carve some random ones on the rest of the rings to muddle things up a bit. When the notches align, the tube would slip out.
So much for that bit- the only thing I'm trying to figure out is an elegant method for holding the rings together when the tube isn't in the inside. I suppose a guy could make a sheet metal insert, but that isn't much fun. If there were alternating fixed and movable rings, the fixed rings could be joined to one another and to the base and that would do it, but that seems a little clunky. Maybe a second piece of PVC pipe slightly larger than the first with a slit cut in it and fixed rings epoxied in place. I know, the PVC isn't all that classy, but the rings would run smoothly over it, and it's easy to cut. A guy could cover the exposed bits in veneer to make it look nicer.
(As you've no doubt noticed, I'm doubtful about hollowing perfect tubes all day, you may be a better turner than I, or maybe just more patient!)
Anyway, it seems like something interesting to chew on a bit, and if a person were to come up with an economical way of making them, it seems like a good seller. I remember seeing a lot of people with puzzles made from bits of bent rods, rope and various wooden shapes several years ago, and those things weren't all that cheap- but most of the people I knew had at least one of them laying around. I figure with the periodic threads about craft-fair projects, it's worth consideration anyhow.
_________________________________________________________
For those of you who have no idea what I'm taking about, the cryptex is a puzzle box that Leonardo DiVinci drew a picture of, and it got featured promenently in Dan Brown's book. Basically, it's a wooden tube with five (though it could be any number of them) lettered rings on it. You use the letters on the rings to spell the code word, and a smaller tube on the inside slides out.
Supposedly, this was for transporting secret messages- to keep people from just busting the thing open, there was a glass vial of vinegar inside that would break and make the message unreadable if it was banged around or otherwise forced.
Here's a picture of some that a guy is custom making- though I suppose they could look like whatever you wanted them to, as long as the insides work.