The Most EXPENSIVE and COMPLEX Puzzle on the Planet!!

[Music] Craig Thibodeau and Robert Jaeger have made some of the most intricate extravagant expensive and amazing puzzles for the modern world has ever seen they work together to incorporate their puzzles into really fine furniture their pieces are unique and take months to build these are the same guys that made the $10,000 puzzle box earlier this year I've since commissioned a second puzzle for them but in the meantime Craig invited me to his warehouse to check out something he's been working on what you are about to see is one of the biggest and most expensive puzzles ever made [Music] [Music] all right guys so I'm here with Craig Thibodeau who you may know from say hi Craig you may know from the puzzle box that that he built for me which was intense as you can see right here we'll put the footage there Craig's also building so many other things among those things is a second project which we're not going to talk about just yet we'll get we'll get to that eventually Craig can you tell me a little bit about this piece here yeah this is a kind of a 17th century style desk it's based on a desk by David Rankin who was a like a mechanical furniture maker back in that age this is taking the shape of that desk but it's adding puzzles and sort of automated and chemical movement to it there's quite a lot of automation going on in this nothing you can really see now and for cure there's there's simple stuff I put together and where this will be a drawer they'll slide out it'll open the stairs next to it and that will unlock another stair that Wow well as mechanical lifts that'll come up here with little cabinets how many total puzzles do you expect to have in this I don't recall exactly there's about 200 and something steps to solve it not individual puzzles but steps but there's there's a lot of really complicated stuff inside you've got to do actual research outside of the desk to figure some stuff out with you know star locations and constellations so do you ever play the app the room no but you you probably people probably brought it up to you constantly this is like a physical representation of that a little bit like yeah it has that DaVinci feel that that that sort of otherworldly vibe especially like with like when you corporate like a strong and like you know like just kind of like has a mystical quality about it like the legs all the legs are fixed yeah there's there's a little stiff it'll open it's a little swollen shut right now because of the humidity oh wow so you got compartments within the legs yes so this leg has a pop-out compartment and then these two front legs will rotate all the other legs are fixed but these will rotate and activate a gear mechanism inside open up some mechanical drawers in the baby this is just something that you yourself designed did you have any help on this no this is another one I worked on with Robert yogurt yeah same thing we've been collaborating now for probably about two years so this is our sixth or seventh piece that's a trip by far the most complicated obviously you can't you can't say who this is for no he doesn't actually want people to know that he hasn't totally totally understandable probably also paid for yeah that's that was my next question it's a lot I mean I can I can probably guess but I won't yeah it represents about six months worth of full-time work it's probably about a month month and a half of design work and then four or five months of physical construction I've got the basic stress half year year pretty much I don't how do you feel about a build like this is this something that uh this is like a once a lifetime no I think there'll be more like this yeah yeah I'd like to do more babe you need a desk six months timeline to be filled so I hope your wife would be that happy if you owned a desk like this business expense right yeah put in the showroom and hide things inside people define and that's kind of the idea with most of my pieces each one there are some mechanical things that are similar between them but the idea is to make each one function in a different way yeah something different one rotates to rotate I think what I love about this stuff that you guys come up with is that you also have an appreciation not only for obviously the quality of the work but as far as the mechanisms go there's there's a beauty and showing that off yeah and I think you guys really nailed that with your pieces it's not always hidden to gives a lot of puzzles they hide the mechanisms and it's unfortunate yeah and when you guys you know there's you get you give a little hints of oh this is sort of rotating you see the mechanism and I feel like that's so satisfying to watch yeah it should be pretty interesting on this one I think there are 14 or 15 autumn moving components Wow so there's stuff coming out the sides like all the drawers in the back are automated there's two lifts mechanisms there's doors that will swing open automatically so as and someone who who does this now is this ever an interest to you as like growing up were you ever like interested in puzzles at all not really no just cabinetmaker right in the cabinet and furniture maker and mechanical engineering actually really yeah I did product design for ceramics and then kind of fell into this and it's been 20 years now but this is carried on this is full-time for you now yeah and it's primarily puzzles and mechanically automated furniture now that's that's almost everything that I'm doing so you're saying I have to I have to start pre-ordering more of my puzzles before you get too busy as what you're saying well I'm trying to get your stuff done I really am yeah no of course and I I can't wait to see this finish machine there's gonna be an additional layer of kind of a roller finials along the top here with some more trim and and along the top here as well and there's a bronze plaque the whole desk is based on kind of a pirate theme so there's a moon's plaque of a ship going in the front that's part of the puzzle tell me this is going on a ship it's not it's going up into LA that's so beautiful I mean I'd hope so I think the shipping to be absorbent if you were to ship it anywhere else is gonna weigh total yeah like a piano yeah there's about forty years so drawers in it and just a bunch of mechanical stuff inside and this is a I know you can't tell us about the person but this is this is a show-off piece of collection pieces it's gonna be actually used to put his like laptop on I think is the gaming station somebody who's addicted to puzzles and just loves them and I still it's his personal piece ya know we're gonna get showing off I mean I'll do videos of it like I've done with other course showing it off and probably break it into your Apple videos because there's just too much there's so much going on yeah I mean the way I've designed it some of the automated stuff happens early so it can be showing off all right you get that wow factor right away yeah but the majority of it takes a long time to solve it's something he should be working on for four or five months off and on - solved there's no way he's gonna sit down and solve it in 24 hours incredible complexity that's kind of what he wants - right you just want to be able to figure it out right away yeah what a piece man that is insane yeah I mean we've taken the the pirate theme and kind of run with it so there's the log book from the ship captain that's based on there's just one the local sword yeah oh yeah can we do that can we do that one more time oh my god that sword is actually cool I did you had a wooden sword before won't come all the way out here in the future what happens with that you'll find it here and then you can see down in the bottom yeah this will actually be hidden but this will go into a slot here oh my god so the idea with a lot of the stuff on this based on other puzzles is to have stuff that has multiple uses so even on this you can actually take a piece off to make so even that comes yeah and the handle still attached to that is nothing everything on like this it also has its function of what's not functional anymore but it was functional this will go in that main compartment so when you slide the dagger in the doors will open then you can pull this apart it's got the same sort of thing where it's got a ramrod that you can pull out and then it has another piece removable keys these pieces thread together if I get the right one incredible and then this becomes it's got a square shaft yeah and it becomes a winding mechanism for the clock motors that are inside do um are you familiar with the clickspring yeah yeah he made for use incredible you're known for a lot of inlay work correct yeah it's veneering and yeah so like all the panels here or walnut burl they'll be framed in satin wood around the borders so this is all the near the top and then the walnut burl here has been air and then inlaid with satin wood around the perimeters maybe maybe he'll invite me over one day and we'll solve it together he's but each one of these drawers opens a different way so like their first I can walk you through it as long as I get I get this $10,000 puzzle box and I see this thing and I'm thinking I gotta step up my game that's what I'm thinking that's the only thing running through my mind right now is like I gotta compete with this now [Laughter] yeah can you imagine I want four I want my house to be done like this by the way guys definitely check out Craig's channel below he features all the puzzles that he's crafted and the mechanism that him and Robert Yarger together have crafted and come up with and worth a look just to appreciate the engineering ingenuity quality and craftsmanship that goes into these things is uh it's stunning so definitely definitely worth a look stripper for everybody at home doing projects for a client and everything else how do you manage your stress level with something like this is there any stress that you feel oh yeah yeah yeah there's about a million details to balance and of your design but also stress about how if the client gonna like this is it like is there any of that or oh yeah no the quality has to be there and it's a challenge to make sure that yeah every detail on it is to the standard that I want it to be and how do you manage that meticulous work over time yeah lots of practice yeah I mean it's it's tough to say but that's basically it lots and lots of practice yeah and just just going for it I guess I'm just not not holding back and not letting maybe the crippling fear stop you and just working through it well don't start with a piece like this as your first piece of furniture good tip it's been 20 years it's taken that long to get here so yeah I mean it takes a while to get good enough to do a certain level of work maybe there maybe there's some of my subscribers out there interested in learning woodworking and in furniture building is there any is there any resource that you can link them to there is a book on veneering there is I saw I've heard you have it here oh the craft of the nearing this is your book yeah complete guide from basic to advanced okay well how basic are we talking cuz let me tell you something this guy pretty basic it starts very basic it starts with how the veneer is made are these all your pieces not all of them but most of them you know there are a couple gallery sections and feature pieces from other people this is 20 years of your life basically is what you're saying pretty much yeah very cool it's through the Taunton press they can get that at your shop they can get it through my website yep sign copies to the website or Amazon perfect I'll leave the link below if you guys are interested in that Thanks okay well that was the tour of Craig's workshop absolutely astonishing work here this thing I cannot wait to see once it's done once once Craig finishes this it'll be up on his channel he's gonna obviously demo it and kind of jealous kind of jealous of that piece not gonna lie I'm gonna remortgaging my house to get a desk yeah I can drive the desk to work it's fine I can rent it out to people all right Craig thanks so much for giving us a tour here absolutely amazing let me shake your hand thanks again thank you look forward to look forward to seeing the piece that that you and now Robert are gonna be working on no hints here but it's going to be absolutely epic maybe maybe we'll get a little maybe a little audio byte of one when it'll be done so we have some proof here thanks Craig [Music]

Channel: Chris Ramsay

Views: 1,002,458

Keywords: chris ramsay, chris, ramsay, puzzle, puzzles, puzzle solving, craig thibodeau, how to solve, solving, solved, puzzle solution, solution, puzzle solver, puzzle desk, puzzle furniture, mr puzzle, puzzle master

Id: 4Rw4NFlSLlM

Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019