DIY Magnetic Marble Maze
DIY Magnetic Marble Maze
A few months ago I was showing you how I was creating a playhouse in an old shed that’s situated on an old 1950’s farm.
That part of the shed is going very well though I probably could still make a few additions. At the time I asked for any suggestions and I am keeping a lookout for some of your creative ideas.
Right now it has a kitchen, a sitting area, a few dress up clothes, a pet store and a doctors kit.
What I didn’t mention when I posted the first playhouse pictures was that that shed has a back room. And that back room is also in need of finished walls and ceiling and floor but it would make a great addition to the playhouse. Maybe for a little bit older kids.
Since I needed to cover another large portion of wall, I was thinking some kind of interactive game that would cover part of the wall….a large scale marble maze?!
Back to my favorite dump pile where I found a couple more hollow core doors. Your doors don’t have to be hollow, these are just the ones my local salvage yard gives away for free and with the added bonus of being so much lighter to carry around and shove in my car.
These will make a great covering for the wall and a base to hold my sheets of metal for the marble maze.
These 2×3 ft pieces of solid steel sheet metal were found at Lowes.
The metal is fairly thin and it has sharp edges so you’ll definitely need to attach them to a solid surface whether that is directly into your wall, a piece of plywood or any other hard solid surface.
I’m using 3 of the 2×3 sheets of metal. I do need to cut down my doors to fit around my metal sheets and I’m also allowing a nice frame around the sheet metal.
I cut the two doors with a handheld circular saw.
Use construction adhesive to attach the 2 doors together.
If you paint your frame before attaching the sheets of metal you won’t have to worry about getting paint on the metal.
Since I’m using hollow core doors, I did have to use blocks of wood to fill in the ends of the doors where they were cut.
Use additional construction adhesive to attach the metal to your backing. If you are attaching directly to a wall you may want to consider using metal screws.
For the edging of the doors, I’m running an old 2×4 thru the table saw to give me 1/4″ slats.
With a nail gun I attached the slats to cover the ends of the door. These slats of wood also covered up where I filled in the ends of those hollow doors.
The backing is complete, now we begin the fun part of the maze, all the chutes and slides.
This hodgepodge pile of wood is actually wood flooring scraps, though any 1 inch wood will work.
The top piece here is an uncut piece of hardwood flooring. I’m showing you the cuts I’m aiming for, cutting off the tongue and groove parts of the hardwood flooring, cutting the wood in half and hollowing out the middle of the boards.
The bottom piece shows the final cut .
The final piece is about 1 1/4″ wide, plenty of room to hold a marble.
Run the hardwood flooring thru the table saw 3 times removing the tongue, the groove and cutting the wood in half.
Adjust the table saw blade leaving about 1/4″ of the wood untouched.
Adjust the fence of the table saw to give you about 1/4″ to 3/8″ sides of the marble chutes. Feed the flooring slats thru the saw, turn the wood around and do the other side. Now it’s just a matter of adjusting the saw fence bit by bit and feeding the wood thru until you’ve hollowed out the center of the chutes.
A completed chute sitting in a pile of sawdust.
Sand any rough edges.
I used E6000 glue to attach small magnets to the newly cut wood.
While I was at Lowes picking up the metal backing I also picked up a couple of these pipes. I thought they could be fun to slide a marble thru. These magnets kept sliding off, so I just taped them in place until dry.
The pieces work as a marble maze but I really needed some color.
Out came the acrylic paints and these are so much more kid friendly.
If you Google magnetic marble mazes you may pick up more ideas for your marble maze but if you have the chutes completed you’re more than halfway there.
To give me a bumpy slide I used a tabletop scrollsaw to cut a wavy line thru this piece of scrap wood.
I didn’t need my wavy slide quite as thick as it started out so I trimmed it down quite a bit.
For the sides of my wavy slide, I cut old shutter slats in half and glued them to the sides of my slide with the E6000 glue.
The completed bumpy slide.
For marble blocks, if you hit the block the marble will turn around and go the other way, I’m using some old wooden spools. A block of wood would work just as well.
Cut a piece of pvc pipe in varying lengths, attach magnets and you have tunnels for your marbles to flow thru.
You may also want some kind of box to catch the falling marbles. Find a nice small box and attach magnets or build your own. This one is made from scraps of 1/4 inch plywood. It’s once again glued together with E6000.
This marble maze is a great way to have an interactive wall in a playhouse but if you have a smaller space, consider using just one of the 2’x3′ panels. That should give you plenty of room for play.
As always, stay inspired.
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This is a great idea!