I’m Barking Mad, but no do-do on my pavement!

Boy and Girls,

After getting a canning from yazall dog lovers after I posted my dim sim recipe

I felt that those turd generators needed their presence be felt, other than by depositing mine fields on the footpath, to the chagrin of most petless pedestarians.
..... also did it as a Christmas surprise for my puzzle loving buddy, pottzy!

It just so happened that Steve Good published another puzzle

and in all fairness it was the word puzzle that got my attention rather than a barking canine.

I'm starting to feel that after 11 years of owning a laser, I'm slowly getting some return out of it, albeit free produce, as all I seem to be doing lately is churning stuff out of MDF… cut or engraved on the laser. Hopefully my next project will bring me back to mainstream woodworking…
In the meantime you can read on or do a Moses.

I slackened off and just imported his PDF drawing,

into Corel and reduced it accordingly from ¼" to 6mm and subsequently halved it for 3mm MDF… you don't need to verify my maths, my abacus has recently been re-calibrated (in metric).
Passed it straight onto the laser only to find after closer inspection that many of his lap joints converted from his ¼" measurements to a range between 5.9 to 6.5mm… kind of made the fit a tad unfitting.

In the words of Malcolm Fraser, "Life wasn't meant to be easy"… had to revert back to SketchUp and customised Stevies drawing to constant lap joint sizes (6mm).

Imported back into Corel and reduced to 3mm MDF dimensions, a new set was cut on the laser…


Unfortunately the 3mm MDF was cut out of a 2.9mm thick sheet of MDF… discovered just a tad too late. Allowing for the .1mm laser kerf I was loading 2.9 wide lap joints into a 3.1mm gap… needless to say there was bugger all friction to hold the pieces together… until I used CA on the joints,

and I now have an indestructible "1 piece puzzle" that can play dead,

without falling to pieces and will be relegated to the back corner of my forthcoming display cabinet…

Further measurements revealed that my stockpile of 3mm MDF ranged in thickness from 2.9mm to 3.3mm. To ensure there was friction fit and allowing for the .1mm kerf, I dimensioned sets ranging from 2.8mm to 3.2mm lap joint gaps for the respective MDF thickness.

Nearly worked if not for the inconsistencies in thickness in each sheet… but it was close enough to generate playable puzzles… and all you wowsers thought lasering was a milk run... there is quite a bit of spilt milk,


Ran quite a few through the laser, and they all had to be test fitted to verify their pedigree for release to the public. Consequently there were a few milling around looking for a fire hydrant,

(or a green pee bowl)...

Bagged with instructions and ready for distribution.

FAIW, the coxis is so small that if you dropped it, it was guaranteed to go in the only spot in the room that would be inaccessible… consequently I package 2 spares,

... non-bending turd if the recipient drops the three of them!

For the records, I tried a 6mm version… it was obvious which was the alpha male,


Had another puzzle lined up to bedazzle yazall, however, with the price of MDF in Churchill nowadays, at 350mm tall there won't be too many roaming free outside my garden,

You're being spared by the gods (and a duck), pottzy…

Oh yeah, I made a video about something to with this puzzle.
There is also a video of the SketchUp animation of assembling it.

PS. If you look closely, the dogs a butch and not a bitch!... dirty old Steve G!

Keep safe, jocks... and your jocks, safe!