The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

My grandkids loved the Turtle marble game I built them.......you can see it here.

I search the catalog of Meisel, where I bought the turtle game parts, but they did not have any other marble maze games.

I then searched the Internet and saw several basically square marble mazes, and decided to design my own game to build.

Some games have no exit for the marble, and the good news is the marble can not get lost over time.  I decided to have an exit on my game design.

1. Cut 3/4 by 3/4" boards for outside border
2. Glue and air nail boards to 3/16"Luan bottom, nail from bottom to the top

3. Cut a bunch of 9/16" wide boards from standard 3/4" thick pine
4. Using paper pattern, mark length of each interior piece to saw
5. Drill 2 little holes for each piece where air nail should go

6. Flip game to vertical orientation, glue and air nail using little drilled holes as guides where to nail

7. Paint using Anita's paint from Hobby Lobby

8. Cut plastic using scroll saw

9. Cut 5/8" dia hole in plastic using scroll saw (I tried Forstner bit, but plastic melted and made too rough hole edge, so scroll sawed)
10. Brass screw plastic to game

I had a cheap pin nailer...........that was jammed more than it ever operated.  I bought this Bostitch pin nailer..........and knock on wood...........it has worked flawlessly for me on a couple projects now!!   I used 3/4" long pin nails on this project.  It speeds up building this maze, because you don't have to wait for glue and clamping time.

I uploaded my design to the sketchup warehouse........you can access it here.

This was a fun project, and a good way to use up common 3/4" pine scrap wood :)

The pin nailer really speed up the assembly.

My method of placing each interior piece in the right position, then drilling 2 holes under it..........lets you pin nail in the right location from the bottom side........this method really worked well.

I think the grandkids will like it :)