Its Been Too Long.
Hello all, Emma here. As we finally embark on manufacture of some full production models, I felt that we needed a little update.
First of all, Puzzlebox Furniture’s first full production pieces will be available really soon. By the end of September. We wanted to be ready by the end of August, but the availability of the raw materials held us up. The miller has the designs, and can start as soon as our wood order comes in.
But why the long break? Money, and life getting in the way. As a small team who still have to eat and pay bills, we’ve been working externally to try and support both ourselves and get Puzzlebox into production.
In April 2025 we took posession of the second stage prototype shelving unit, featuring two different solid geometry construction methods in one piece. This was a huge achievement as it enabled us to see which of the proposed systems would function the best in terms of stength and longevity. It also proved that the weight reduction that James built in had worked with no reduction in usability and strength.
We began stress testing Prototype 2 immediately, and so far after over a year of constant use by Richard, they’re still as good as when they left the CNC mill.
Our Kickstarter sadly didn’t manage to hit the mark. This is due to a number of factors, not least of which our lack of funds for marketing. But the Kickstarter feedback built on market research done before embarking on the project, and it let us know that there’s interest in the product. You never know, maybe we’ll try again at some point.
We’ve since been able to push into our first fully production ready designs.
In the meantime, let me show you what happened with Prototype 2.
Amazing. And using James’s two diferent versions of solid geometry anchor points, he was able to work out snags from Prototype 1, and improve the over all functionality.
I’m sure you’re wondering just how much weight it can handle? How does one test this without specialised equipment?
Well the honest answer is that without said equipment we can’t be sure. But considering the oak block board used is rated at over 110kg in a 2m span, this being a much smaller span… Someone else is going to be far better at the maths than I am. I’ll make a guess at One Metric Heckofalot.
We had a novel way of checking on the load-bearing capacity of Prototype 1, but we don’t recommend actually doing this with your pieces…
Do not copy, trained professionals.
Neither of the chaps will thank me for that, but there’s a reason that we need to promote this point. We’d proven that the furniture not only functions pretty much as expected, and we’d managed to work out that it’s incredibly strong (see above). Far sronger than anyone expected.
For prototype 2, we went for a more conventional use method of testing. James and Emma gathered the heaviest books they could find from around their house, and set to seeing what this baby could handle.
shelves with books
The books alone on that single shelf came to 20kg. If capacity and space were no issue, we could have kept going.
20kg of books on bathroom scales.
So where does this leave us? Right now we’re waiting for the completed pieces of production furniture to be ready. And in the meantime, Richard gets to continue looking at (and using) prototype 2.
See you when the new bits are in!
- Emma