Blind-Track Maze Gift Tube

A cash-and-gift-card tube that opens only when you steer a hidden peg through a maze you can't see, guided by feel and one small notch on the lid.

Date: 2026-10-04 Category: Puzzles and Games Modeling difficulty: Intermediate Estimated print: ~6.5 h total · ~170 g PLA (estimate) Suggested price: $22–$30 printed · $7 digital file (estimate) Status: Concept

Description

Two printed parts. The core is a hollow cylinder on a fluted foot, with a maze cut 2 mm deep into its outer wall. The sleeve is a closed-top tube that slides over the core, with one small peg (the nub) on its inside wall near the open rim. The nub rides in the maze grooves, so the sleeve comes off only after the nub has travelled the whole route and out the top.

The maze is hidden while the tube is closed, which is the point. Most printed money mazes put the maze on the outside where you can watch your progress. Here, the only clue is a V-notch on the sleeve's top edge that shows where the nub is, so you solve it by feel: lift, turn, hit a wall, back off. One move in the route makes you push the sleeve back down before you can turn further, and most people try everything else first.

Inside, the 57 mm cavity takes a standard gift card standing on end (85.6 × 54 mm) or a roll of bills. Closed, the tube is 72 mm across and 109 mm tall, about the size of a tall coffee mug.

Why it sells

Maze gift boxes are one of the steadier puzzle sellers on Etsy. Etsy's search results on 2026-10-04 showed a Russian nesting maze puzzle box with 8.5k sales at $29.00 and a money maze tube with 2.5k sales at $16.99 (Etsy, "3D Printed Maze Puzzle Box"). Cash-gift puzzles have their own Etsy category (Etsy, "3D Printed Cash Gift Holder"), and sellers already split the product into sizes, such as a large maze gift tube (Etsy listing) and the long-running nesting maze box (Etsy listing). Free files for visible-maze cylinders are common on Printables, MakerWorld, and Cults3D (Puzzle Cylinder; Maze Puzzle Box, MakerWorld; Cylinder Maze Puzzle, Cults3D).

Almost all of those show the maze on the outside, so an adult solves them in a minute or two. A blind maze with a reverse move lasts longer, and it costs the seller nothing extra to print.

Who buys it

Relatives giving cash or a gift card for birthdays, graduations, and holidays who want the opening to be a small event. Buyers are on Etsy in November and December and at craft fairs, and they often buy two or three at once for siblings.

Design overview

• Two parts: a core with an outside maze and a capped sleeve with one inward nub.
• Blind maze: closed, the route is invisible; a V-notch on the sleeve rim and a matching notch on the core foot mark the nub's position. This is the feature the listed mazes lack.
• Route on a 12-column × 8-row grid (30° columns, 12 mm rows), 13 moves long, with three dead ends.
• Reverse move: at one point the nub must go back down a row before the route continues.
• Gift-card cavity: Ø57 × 102.5 mm deep.
• Fluted foot and fluted top band give grip; both print without supports.
• Every groove is built from three CAD-agnostic operations (radial holes, radial slots, revolve cuts), so it doesn't need a wrap or emboss tool.

Dimensions

Parts list

Hardware and non-printed parts

None — fully printed.

Fits and tolerances

• Sleeve bore on core body: sliding fit, 0.3 mm per side (Ø66.6 over Ø66). That's 0.1 mm looser than the usual 0.2 because the two surfaces engage over 97.5 mm, and small roundness errors on a tall print add up to binding.
• Nub in maze groove: sliding fit, 0.4 mm per side across the groove (3.6 nub in a 4.4 groove) and 0.6 mm radial (nub tip at R31.6, groove floor at R31.0). The extra room keeps the nub from snagging at the 90° turns.
• Sleeve rim on core foot: butt contact at Z 8 when closed. The core top (Z 105.5) stops 0.5 mm short of the cap underside (Z 106), so the sleeve always rests on the foot and never on the core.

Modeling guide

Core origin: centre of the foot's bottom face. +Z runs up the axis. Angle θ = 0° lies on +X, and θ increases counter-clockwise seen from above (+Z). In an unrolled view seen from outside, increasing θ moves right. Grid node (c, r) sits at θ = 30·c degrees and Z = 12 + 12·r.

Maze core

1. Sketch on XY: circle Ø72. Extrude +Z 8 (foot).
2. Sketch on the foot top (Z 8): circle Ø66. Extrude +Z 97.5, to Z 105.5 (body).
3. Sketch on the top face: circle Ø57. Cut down 102.5, leaving a 3 mm floor (cavity Z 3–105.5).
4. Foot flutes: on the XY plane, circle R1.5 centred at (36, 0); cut through the foot height (Z 0–8); circular pattern ×24 about Z (every 15°).
5. Node holes. At each grid node listed below, cut a radial blind hole Ø4.4 into the body's outer surface, 2.0 deep (to R31), axis pointing at the Z axis.
6. Vertical segments. For each vertical move, cut a radial slot 4.4 wide, 2.0 deep, along the column from one node's Z to the other's.
7. Horizontal segments. For each horizontal move, revolve-cut a 4.4 tall (Z) × 2.0 deep (R31 to R33) rectangle centred on that row's Z, from the start node's θ to the end node's θ.
8. Exit. At column c1 (θ 30°), cut a radial slot 4.4 wide, 2.0 deep, from Z 96 straight up through the top face (Z 105.5).
9. Chamfer the body's top outer edge 0.8.
10. Index notch: on the foot top outer edge at θ 0°, cut a V-groove 2 wide × 1.2 deep, running the full 8 mm foot height.

Solution route (start closed at node c0 r0):

Dead ends (cut the same way):

Every node named in either table gets a step-5 hole.

Sleeve (own origin: centre of the open rim, +Z toward the cap; installed, the rim sits at core Z 8)

1. Sketch on XY: circle Ø72. Extrude +Z 101.
2. Sketch on the rim face (Z 0): circle Ø66.6. Cut +Z 98, leaving a 3 mm cap (Z 98–101).
3. Nub: on the bore wall at θ 0°, centred at Z 4, add a block 3.6 wide (tangential) × 3.6 tall (Z, 2.2 to 5.8), protruding 1.7 inward from the bore wall (inner face at R31.6). Chamfer the nub's cap-side edge (its +Z top edge) 1.7 × 45° so it prints without support.
4. Grip band: on the XY plane, circle R1.5 centred at (36, 0); cut from Z 86 to Z 101; circular pattern ×24 (every 15°), with the pattern's first instance offset 7.5° so no flute lands on the 0° index.
5. Index notch: on the top outer edge at θ 0°, cut a V-groove 2 wide × 1.2 deep, running 3 down from the top face.
6. Chamfer the rim's inner edge 0.6 (lead-in onto the core) and the cap's outer edge 0.8.

Print settings

Assembly

1. Put the gift inside the core cavity.
2. Turn the sleeve so its top notch sits 30° counter-clockwise (seen from above) from the foot's notch. That puts the nub over the exit groove at column c1.
3. Lower the sleeve until the nub enters the exit groove, then run the solution table in reverse, from move 13 back to move 1, until the sleeve rests on the foot with the two notches lined up. Print the table on a card for the giver only.

Variants and upsells

• Difficulty sets: an "easy" core with a 6-move visible route printed in translucent PLA so the maze shows through, and a "hard" core with five dead ends.
• Gift-wrap colour sets for winter holidays, birthdays, and graduation.
• Mini size scaled to 75% for coins or a ring (cavity Ø42.75; check the card no longer fits).
• A personalised lid: initials or a date recessed into the cap, shown blank by default.
• Bundle a nested pair: a mini tube inside a large one.

Selling and distribution

Sell printed tubes on Etsy from early November and at December craft markets. Material is about $3.40 at $20/kg, plus about 6.5 h of machine time; at $0.40/h the cost of goods is about $6 with packaging (estimate), which is why $22–$30 makes sense only with the blind-maze story in the photos and title. Selling the file on Cults3D or Printables at $7 under a personal-use licence, with a commercial licence at $20, suits print farms. Ship it closed, with a sealed solution card.

Listing keywords: maze gift box, money maze, gift card holder puzzle, cash gift puzzle, blind maze puzzle, hidden maze box, puzzle box for adults, stocking stuffer puzzle, graduation money gift, brain teaser gift, 3D printed puzzle.

Risks and IP notes

• Binding on a warped sleeve: a long thin tube can print slightly oval. Mitigation: 0.3 mm clearance, elephant-foot compensation, and printing the sleeve cap down so the rim is the last, freest layer.
• Nub shear: the 3.6 mm nub carries all the pull if someone yanks the sleeve. Mitigation: 3 walls, and the nub prints attached along its full 3.6 mm height to the bore wall.
• Category saturation: cheap maze tubes sell for $5–$15. Mitigation: lead with the blind maze and the reverse move, and offer difficulty sets.
• Prior designs: cylinder mazes are an old idea, and many free versions exist. Model from this spec, not from a downloaded file, and don't copy anyone's route.
• Never use toy or game brand names in listings.

Resource links

• Etsy: 3D Printed Maze Puzzle Box market — search results on 2026-10-04 showed a nesting maze box with 8.5k sales and a money maze tube with 2.5k sales
• Etsy: Russian Nesting Maze Puzzle Box — the long-running nesting maze gift box
• Etsy: 3D Printed Cash Gift Holder market — cash-gift puzzles as their own category
• Etsy: 3D Maze Puzzle Gift Tube (large) — sellers offering size tiers
• Printables: Puzzle Cylinder by tmackay — print-in-place hidden maze turned by two dials
• MakerWorld: Maze Puzzle Box, gift container, 2 piece — free two-part visible-maze gift box
• Cults3D: Cylinder Maze Puzzle, big gift box — a cylinder maze sized to fit a gift card