A few Exchange Puzzles from IPP34

This entry is part 1 of 1 in the series IPP 34

I know many of you out there must be wondering what’s happened to me; I seem to have gone quiet again recently. I seem to recall doing the same thing after going to my first IPP two years ago. It’s certainly not that I’ve had a lack of puzzles to solve, nor that I’ve not been puzzling because I have. So I thought it was about time I put down a few thoughts on some of the things I’ve been playing with. Having so many new puzzles from the Edward Hordern Exchange I’ll try to give a few impressions, rather than a full review of each. I think if I tried to do a full review, it’s unlikely I’d get through them all before the next IPP!

The first few Exchange puzzles I've played with

The first few Exchange puzzles I’ve played with

First up here’s four of the puzzles I’ve played with and solved. From left to right we have “join the Club” by Scott Elliot, “TetraParquet” by Stan Isaacs, “Chameleon” by Pantazis Houlis and “Mixed Plate Burr” by Frans de Vreugd. Each of them is completely different from the others in this set, making them all a different challenge, and a very varied set of puzzles to play with. That’s one of the great things I found with the exchange. There’s a lot of different types of puzzler, and I know myself I tend not to buy certain styles of puzzle (Burr’s being one of those), but here you get a great sample of all types and styles, and I’ve found myself trying and enjoying a number of puzzles I would normally have passed by.

Join the Club by Scott Elliot

Join the Club by Scott Elliot

First up is Scott’s “Join the Club”. A fairly simple but great looking two piece puzzle where the goal is to join the two pieces into a club shape. This is one of what I’d call Scott’s signature propeller dissections of an object, which requires a little bit of thought as to how the pieces come together, and then some fun motion to assemble it. I’ve found this is a good “fiddle factor” puzzle, that I can sit at my desk and put together, then take apart repeatedly while I work on a problem. Fun puzzle, and definitely worth picking up a copy.

TetraParquet by Stan Issacs

TetraParquet by Stan Isaacs

“TetraParquet” by Stan Isaacs is a beautiful looking object. This triangular pyramid is made from six colour paired pieces of contrasting woods. Designed and made by Wayne Daniel, his mastery of interesting angles, and incredibly accurate (and fine) joinery is apparent. Coming apart with a co-ordinate motion, the goal is to disassemble, scramble and re-assembe the pieces into the pyramid shape. The mortise and tenon joinery inside is something to me marveled at, and it’s this joinery which makes the puzzle. With some pieces having the mortise, and others the required tenon, arranging the pieces so all the slots line up with the tabs is a simple but satisfying challenge. And it looks great! Not a difficult puzzle, but a great showpiece, and a stunning piece of woodworking.

Chameleon by Pantazis Houlis

Chameleon by Pantazis Houlis

“Chameleon” by Pantazis Houlis which was made by the New Pelikan Workshop is an interesting idea. At it’s core is a wooden cube which has been veneered with several different woods. Onto that cube a number of paper flaps have been attached with printed wood species, and the goal is to transform the cube into one of five woods, by hiding the flaps and leaving only the single species visible. In concept it’s a nice idea, and it’s a simple puzzle that will take you all of five minutes to solve each combination. It’s certainly not the most visually stunning puzzle out there, but it is fun, and the idea is quite different. I doubt this will be to everyone’s taste, but I am glad I was able to play with it, and the fact that there is a real piece of each of the woods used on one face is a nice touch, and adds to the value.

Mixed Plate Burr by Frans de Vreugd

Mixed Plate Burr by Frans de Vreugd

The last of the puzzles I’ll touch on in this post is the “Mixed Plate Burr” by Frans de Vreugd. Now as I already mentioned, I’m not a huge burr fan, but I did pick this up and decide to give it a serious attempt. The pieces themselves are interesting, as they have been cut using a high pressure water cutter. Not my first thought for cutting wood, but it does produce a very accurate cut, making this type of puzzle repeatable at a reasonable scale. Something I find interesting as a woodworker is that looking at the edges where the water blade cuts, there are marks that could easily be mistaken for a saw blade. The Burr itself uses a mix of board burr pieces and standard burr pieces to make a standard six piece burr shape. Rated at 11.4 it’s a reasonable level burr, but not too high that it’s impossible. Where’s the proof? Well I managed to assemble it without any use of Burr Tools. As I found out, Burr Tools would have been no use to me on this particular puzzle anyway, so it makes the fact that I put this together even more satisfying. Even if like me, you’re not a burr man, take a look at this one. It’s a little different, and while the Baltic Birch Ply is not a collectors piece, the puzzle itself more than makes up for its looks.

Ring & String, or perhaps “Something memorable from IPP”?

Hi all, it’s been a good few weeks since I sat down and wrote anything, but then after a fantastic three and a half weeks touring the UK, catching up with friends and family; a wonderful long weekend with the MPP crowd soaking up the fantastic hospitality of the amazingly humble and welcoming Walker household; a week of IPP and many puzzle friends old and new, all mixed in with my one year delayed Honeymoon, it’s good to be back, and probably about time I put a pen to paper, or finger to keyboard.

There’s a good few puzzle bloggers out there who are writing about IPP, and all the fabulous conversations and events that took place over the week, so I’m not going to give you my account of what happened. But I do suggest you go read Allard’s Assessment, Rox’s Ramblings, and Jerry’s Journey. They’re all well worth reading, and will give you a good feeling for what a fantastic time was had by all. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again, the people in the puzzle community are an amazing group, and I’m proud and humbled to know each and every one of you, and to be able to call so many friends. Thank you.

I will give one special mention to Allard and his wife Gillian (as well as their two dogs, Ben and Jerry) for welcoming my wife and I into their home, putting us up for 4 days, feeding us, making us so welcome and at home, and not accepting a single penny in thanks. You truly are great friends, and I can’t wait to return the favour at some point. Fortunately no harm came of the dogs who decided to eat some of my green packing peanuts while we were all out. The only casualty with Allard’s lap when one of them decided to throw up on him. (Sorry!)

Anyway, I do want to mention one great experience from my IPP. While there Dr Colin Wright was wandering around talking to people and showing us some interesting little tricks. Colin is a Juggler, magician and specialises in Communication. I spent quite a bit of time talking to him, given that I juggle, have done my share of magic over the years, and with all this writing that I do, I have to accept that I have something to do with communication as well. (Ed: So hurry up and get to the point!)

Colin was wandering around with a length of chain around his neck, attached to it there was a steel ring. At one point as I was wandering around talking to the myriad of puzzlers Colin had a group around him, and he was doing something interesting with said ring and “string”.

“Now, hold it like this ….”

As you can see, being the curious chap that I am, I wandered over and listened in to what he was saying. Before I knew it, he’s turned to me, and I have the apparatus around my hand, and with a huge grin have been shown how the magic happens, and have now done it for myself. Yes, I really did have a huge grin on my face, as Colin explained what was happening, and that he had analyzed the behaviour to work out exactly how things worked, and perfected the one-handed technique. A few other people commented that they’d seen it before, and even done this before but using other grips, two hands or even a table. (Ed: But what was it … get to the point already!)

Well when I got back from IPP, I went to the local hardware store, picked up a couple of rings, some chain and made my own copy, and one for my son. I knew he would like it, and for a couple of dollars, it’s a great toy to have. Anyway, the picture above surfaced on Facebook, and I was tagged. A few comments from confused readers later, and I find myself making a video showing what we were doing. (Ed: But you’ve still not told us what that was.)

Rather that try to explain, I’ll just leave you with the video below. I am fortunate enough to have a high-speed camera now, so I took some footage at high speed showing what happens, and put that in the video. I don’t show how to do this, but it’s fantastic to see what’s happening.

Now, I took this to work with me to show a couple of my colleagues as I knew they would appreciate it. What happened though was entirely unexpected. Rather than asking how to do it, I was relieved of the pieces, and the team started trying to work out how to do it themselves. (I’m and engineer, and this has become a problem to be solved). For me this was fantastic. I’ve now seen about 4 different ways that can reproduce the result, none as elegant as what Colin showed me, and none that are nearly as reliable.

So here’s a challenge. Go get yourself a solid ring, a length of chain and try this for yourself. I’d love to see how you get on in the comments!

Until next time, when I’ll be back to puzzles, enjoy the video.

Triangel by Vinco

I have time for one last review before I pack my bags and head off on my honeymoon (one year delayed). This time I’m back for another Vinco, in his mass produced line, Triangel. A clever packing puzzle that really seems to mess with my head. I picked this one up from Puzzle Master” a long time ago.

Triangel by Vinco

Triangel by Vinco

So before you go correcting my spelling, the puzzle isn’t called Triangle, it’s Triangel. I didn’t name it! It’s a 9 piece packing puzzle, where the pieces are not nice cubic pieces, but have been cut at some interesting 45 degree angles with all sorts of shapes created. The tray is fairly basic, made from some Baltic Birch ply, with some assorted hardwoods used for the pieces. The puzzle measures 4.25″ x 3″ x 2.4″ at the peak.

Triangel pieces

Triangel pieces

With only nine pieces, you’d think this wasn’t too challenging. Vinco lists it as 4/5 so fairly tricky. For me I found that the shape of the pieces really challenged me. Having done a lot of packing problems, working with square pieces, I seem to have learned how to tackle them. With these triangular pieces, even finding a good starting point was a challenge. While the end result of a 45 degree triangle is obvious, stacking the pieces to get there seems anything but obvious.

I really enjoyed this puzzle, and it was certainly unlike many of the packing puzzles I’ve played with. A good challenge, and certainly solvable with a little thinking and some time understanding the interactions of the pieces. Go ahead and pick up a copy, you’ll not regret it. Oh, and if this is too easy, Vinco has a harder version that’s a little larger!

Reproducing a puzzle

It’s been a little while since I sat down and wrote anything, and it’s not for lack of puzzles to write about, but really because I’ve been so busy in my own shop making puzzles. With IPP looming, I had set myself some lofty goals of designing and producing my first exchange puzzle. That in itself was a lot of work, but I didn’t stop there. I went on to make copies of Iwahiro’s ODD Puzzle, then a small run of puzzles to give away to new IPP attendees, and then I took on my most ambitious project to date. I remade a Stickman box.

The finished box

The finished box

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll remember that some time back I won a Stickman Domino Box at auction, which needed a little work to turn it into a fully working Domino Box. Having made the Dominoes, and learned a lot about the box along the way, I had the insane idea that I should make a few copies of the box for other puzzlers. There were only 25 originals made by the Stickman Puzzle Box Company, and it’s such a fun design, it really should be played with by more puzzlers. So with insanity on my shoulder, and time slipping away beneath me, I embarked on the most challenging project to date.

A new batch of Dominoes

A new batch of Dominoes

First off, I needed a new set of dominoes, so looking around the growing stockpile of exotic woods that I’ve purchased, I selected a number of boards, and set about the same process as before, and made a bunch of dominoes. I’ll not go into the details, as I’ve covered them elsewhere, but in total I made up 11 sets of dominoes.


Puzzle Piece Bevel Jig

Puzzle Piece Bevel Jig

The last time I’d made the dominoes, I created the bevel on each edge using the router table, with a 45 degree bit. In fact that’s how I’ve done all the bevels for every project so far. I’ve never been too happy with that as a process though. The pieces I tend to work with are a little small, and with a high speed rotating blade, it wouldn’t take much for a piece to slip, and things to go wrong quickly. So taking some advice from fellow puzzle maker Eric Fuller, I created a new jig. As you can see, it’s a 45 degree cradle, where the saw blade pokes out through the centre. This allows me to run the piece to be beveled over the blade pretty quickly, and the amount of the blade sticking out is so small, that it’s almost impossible to stick a finger in the blade. Safety first!

A wider shot of the beveling jig

A wider shot of the beveling jig

As you can see from the wider shot, the jig is clamped to my fence, and also clamped to the table, so it won’t move anywhere, making this a pretty safe jig. It’s also fast. Since I don’t need to put a push block onto the piece, and then guide it over the spinning router bit, the whole thing takes much less time.


Drilling Domino pips

Drilling Domino pips

Much like the last time I made dominoes, I had the jig and templates to cut the dots or ‘pips’ for the dominoes. With 11 sets, or 308 dominoes, or 1848 pips depending on how you want to look at it, there was a lot more work this time round. I’d learned from the last attempt when I ended up with blisters from where the drill rubbed against my fingers, and taped up my fingers at the appropriate points to save any further blistering. Sadly, not everything went to plan.

Disaster

Disaster

Around ¾ of the way through the process I hit a snag. My template drill bit exploded! The bit works by having a collar which is held onto the main body with an angled internal neck. So the collar can’t come past that neck as it increases in diameter. The spring pushes it back to the point where the drill bit is covered, and when you push won inside the template the bit is exposed, allowing it to create a pip. Well it seems that since this drill bit made all the original sets of dominoes, it was just rather worn out, and the neck had work to the point where it no longer held the collar in place. With this, it was impossible to finish the dominoes, and I had to scramble to fins a replacement. Fortunately, Rockler sells the kits, and replacement bits … so by mid week I had a replacement and could finish the pips. Dominoes complete, it was time to turn my attention to the puzzle carcass.

Basic pieces for the carcass

Basic pieces for the carcass

Before starting on making the boxes, I’d been studying the design of the joinery, and how the box had been made for weeks. I’ll freely admit that I really didn’t understand why Stickman had done things the way he had, but I had a good idea of what I was doing, and having taken lots of measurements, I proceeded to start making sawdust. Having surfaced and thicknessed the boards, I cut the basic side panels, the top and bottom, as well as the corner posts, and top/bottom frames. The wood choice was Katalox for the body and Cocobolo for the frame. The Katalox will darken over time to a dark black almost ebony like colour, but starts off as a warm rich chocolate brown. The contrast with the Cocobolo should be quite striking.

Initial test fit with rubber bands to hold things together

Initial test fit with rubber bands to hold things together

After an afternoon’s work, I had all the various grooves cut to both support the panels, and allow the top and front to slide respectively when the box is opened. At this point, I came in from the shop, and announced to my wife that Stickman is a genius. Having not truly understood why the box was created the way it is, and the reasons behind design choices, previously, I now fully understood why each piece existed, and exactly how it interacted. Not only is the construction a work of art, it also requires the minimal number of cuts, and pieces to make everything work perfectly. There is an elegance to the design that I hadn’t appreciated. Having spoken with Stickman about it, he agreed. It’s only once you’ve tried to repair someone else’s work, or remake it, that you truly appreciate the process they went through to make the final design. And yes, I’m lucky to be able to talk to the original designer, and get his input and feedback as I worked through this project!

Yes, that piece is still attached

Yes, that piece is still attached

With the main body cut and fitting perfectly, I turned my attention to the ‘decorative’ elements of the puzzle, namely the corner pillars. I’d cut the pieces to the right dimensions but needed to cut out the centre to create corner sections. My first pass on the saw left a rather fun little piece, but after a small adjustment, things were spot on. The joy of working with jigs is that you can make a small adjustment, re-cut, adjust until you’re good, then just cut lots of exact replicas of a piece quickly and accurately.


Cocobolo matchsticks

Cocobolo matchsticks

When cutting the corners, I was left with a lot of cocobolo matchsticks. As with any exotics in the shop, these all end up in a scrap bin, and will eventually be used for something else. Nothing gets wasted!


Initial circular holes in the side plates

Initial circular holes in the side plates

The original puzzle is peppered with holes and gaps. They’re not just because Stickman wanted to make the puzzle lighter (although in my case, working with Katalox which is a dense, heavy wood it’s not a bad thing) but they’re integral to solving the puzzle. You need to be able to see what’s going on inside, and be able to poke your fingers through the sides to manipulate the dominoes. Stickman did all this work on a CNC machine, where effectively, he clamped the wood down, and let a computer controlling a router bit do all the hard work. I don’t have a CNC machine, but I did need to replicate all the holes, and they had to be pretty close to the originals since larger holes would let dominoes escape.

To create the ovals in the sides, I started at the drill press with a Forstner bit and drilled the centres out. I had planned to then take the pieces to the scroll saw, and carefully cut out the ovals. Having tried this, on the first piece, I was entirely unimpressed with the result, and decided not to proceed with that method. Instead I went back to the drill press, and drilled an additional hole either side of the initial central hole, creating something close to an oval. Then I spent several hours with a Dremel to clean up the inside of the hole, and make the ovals smooth and consistent over all the panels. It might seem like a lot of work, but in the end it was a lot less work than my original idea would have been!

Time for a game of \

Time for a game of “Join the Dots”

While I was drilling ‘ovals’ for the side plates, I also drilled a lot of small holes in the top and bottom to allow me to create the stepped holes I needed. There’s no clever way for me to do this without the CNC machines, and I had to do this by hand. Drilling holes at the corners allowed me to insert the blade of the scroll saw, and cutout the holes I needed. By having a hole at each corner, I can easily turn the blade, and get square corners. Before I could start working at the scroll saw though, I needed to have a template to follow, so after a game of “Join the Dots” I had reference lines I could follow.

Inserting the blade through the holes

Inserting the blade through the holes

This shows how the blade is inserted into the middle of the piece, and lets me cut out the hole without having to cut through the sides of the board. It might seem obvious, but there are very few tools in the shop that allow you to make such a cut, and the Scroll Saw is the only one that is close to safe, and accurate enough. The blade I was using cuts a saw kerf that is just 0.01″ thick and leaves a very smooth finish, meaning that there was little additional work after cutting. Of course, I still had to take my time, and each plate took around 45 minutes to cut.

Forgive my Scottish knees

Forgive my Scottish knees

With one panel fully cut, there were only 13 more to cut. Over the course of the next couple of days, I slowly worked my way through them (and a good number of fresh blades … Katalox is dense and dulls blades quickly) before sticking some sand paper to a lollypop stick, and sanding the edges of the holes to soften them, making the piece much nicer to hold.


My first dry fit

My first dry fit

With all the components cut, I could put the pieces together for the first time, and get a feeling for how the final puzzle would look. There was still a lot of work to be done before I could start gluing up the pieces, but this gave me a good feeling for the fit and the look of the finished puzzle.


Pre-finished front and top panels

Pre-finished front and top panels

Given that I would have to glue the puzzle together with the front and top panel in place, I went ahead and pre-finished those pieces. Once they were in place and the corner posts were added, there would be no way to remove them or access the insides to be able to apply finish. The other benefit to pre-finishing the pieces is that the lacquer and wax would help prevent the glue sticking to them, so if there was any glue squeeze-out, it wouldn’t lock the puzzle solid. After all the work to get to this stage, that’s the last thing I wanted!


Piles of puzzle box pieces

Piles of puzzle box pieces

With the boxes mostly taken care of, the dominoes made, there is one additional element needed. There are five additional pieces in various shapes that go into the box to make things more troublesome for the solver. I decided to make these from Redheart and Purpleheart. Each piece is a solid section of wood, and I cut the notches out of the piece. This gives me a nice continuous grain, and a stronger piece. Not to mention that there’s less work for me to cut out a piece than having to cut twice as many pieces, and then re-glue them later. As with the dominoes, these pieces are passed over the bevel jig, to soften the edges, however there is a small problem. Given the internal edges it’s not possible to get the blade into them. This meant that each internal bevel is cut by hand with a chisel. So lots of extra work from my side, but I end up with a clean consistent bevel around the pieces.


Internal blocks glued in place, ready for the final glueup.

Internal blocks glued in place, ready for the final glueup.

On the front panel, there are two blocks which are glued to the inside which are the final part of the locking mechanism. A gap needs to be freed below these blocks to allow the front panel to slide, and then the top to slide. Each piece needs to be added at the right time, or you end up being unable to glue the piece in place, and end up with firewood rather than a puzzle.

By this point it seemed like I’d spent weeks and still had nothing more than a pile of pieces to show for my work. The glueup for the box is rather complicated. Unlike most other projects I’d tackled, the box can’t be glued up, then assembled. The glueup is the assembly. The way things work is that the front panel, and top panel both have ‘wings’ which travel in the grooves of the side panels. In each panel, a section of the wings are removed to allow them to pass the pillars on the corners and the trim on the bottom. So when I mentioned earlier that Stickman is a genius, this is why. Those pieces which look like trim and decoration are actually integral parts of the mechanism. What is means is that for the glueup, the top and front are inserted, then the pillars are glued in place. This prevents the top panel from being removed again, so I had to make sure that everything was in the right place.

Seven Domino Boxes Standing in a row

Seven Domino Boxes Standing in a row

So with the blocks in place, the pillars glued on, and a check that everything still moved, I could glue the top and bottom frames in place, finishing the glueup, and being the moment of truth as to whether I had a puzzle box reproduction, or some very expensive (and frustrating) firewood.

While the glue on the frames was drying, I clamped several boxes together back to back and clamped them together. This meant that each box was providing a gluing jig for the one next to it, giving me good clamping pressure across the entire joint, and ensuring that all the boxes were identical.

This is probably the most challenging assembly I’ve attempted, and I’m pleased to say that it all went very well. I’ve clearly learned a lot over the last couple of years, and having three times as many clamps today as I had when I started certainly doesn’t hurt. It really is true, you never can have enough clamps!


The difference is marked after applying lacquer

The difference is marked after applying lacquer

The following night, once the glue was dry, I could finally test the mechanism on each box, and confirm that it worked as intended. You have no idea how much of a relief it was that each box slid smoothly and opened as expected… until the last box. The lid didn’t come out past the front pillars! Fortunately, I have some sharp chisels, and I took a few thousands off the top of each of the front pillars, and the lid slid past. The amount I had to remove was so small, it’s unlikely that even I could find the box I had to shave, but it was enough to stop things working. Fortunately, it wasn’t a difficult fix.

The last steps were to finish the puzzles. As you can see the boxes at the back where the first coat of lacquer has been applied really show the true colours of the wood, unlike the boxes at the front which look drab and liefeless without the finish.

Sets of dominoes all finished

Sets of dominoes all finished

The final steps are to triple buff the puzzles and dominoes, to really make them shine.

Stickman was kind enough to send me the original files for the puzzle booklet, so with a couple of updates, I have been able to create a new booklet which matches the reproduced puzzles. (Ed: Have I mentioned before how nice a guy he is?)


Stickboy

Stickboy

While I was working on the puzzle, I was posting images of the work in progress. Seems that a few of my puzzling friends have suggested that I could be “Stickboy”. I might have taken that idea and run with it. Stickman seemed to like the idea, and agreed to let me use the moniker and a modified version of his logo. I also took his own logo, and created a much higher resolution version for use on Stickman’s next project. After all, I was cleaning things up for my own use. Seemed silly not to let Stickman benefit from my work.


The finished box

The finished box

After that, it’s a simple case of putting the dominoes inside the carcass, mixing things up and passing them to a new owner. It’s been an interesting project, and one I’m glad that I tackled. The question is which box do I tackle next?

9 Parts Packing Problem

Another of the IPP32 exchange puzzles that I’ve been banging my head on for a while now is the 9 Parts Packing Problem designed by David Goodman, and exchanged by Dor Tietz. I travel to Israel for work fairly frequently, and as such I have the pleasure of meeting up with Dor, David and a few other puzzlers in the area for an evening of puzzling and good (non work related) conversation. This puzzle has been taunting me for quite some time, but having finally solved it, I feel that it’s time I wrote about it.

9 Parts Packing Problem

9 Parts Packing Problem

This simple looking puzzle consists of just 9 pieces plus the box, with a sliding lid. Eight of the pieces can be easily packed into the main compartment of the box, leaving a pesky 9th that sticks out, preventing the lid from shutting. Cleverly, David has designed the box to store the ‘9th’ piece, in an extra space, so when frustration sets in, you can put everything back in the box and forget about it for a while. (I may have done this more than once!)

The box measures 3 ⅜” x 2 116” x 1 ½”, units, with the pieces being 1 x 1 x 3 units for the larger block, and 1 x 1 x 2 for the smaller block. As it states on the side of the box, the goal is to pack all 9 parts into the large container (2 x 3.8 x 4.75 units) and slide the lid closed. Sounds simple enough, and given how many packing puzzles I’ve played with over the last couple of years, it should have been easy …

Space for that pesky 9th piece

Space for that pesky 9th piece

While the puzzle isn’t made from fancy exotic woods, and there’s no interesting joinery in the box, it would be easy to overlook this puzzle. I would suggest though that you don’t overlook it. This is a very clever little puzzle, and one which I have struggled to solve for many (many) months. I’m not too proud to admit that I even went so far as to ask for help, posting both a picture, and a plea for help on Facebook, and had a few people send me hints. Nothing that told me how to solve it, but nudges in the right direction. None of them helped sadly.

9 pieces, and not enough room

9 pieces, and not enough room

The puzzle sat on my desk at work, and taunted me for months. I’ve idly picked it up, had a poke at the pieces and put it back down with no real progress. I’ve tried blowing on it, spinning it, shaking it, beating it (it’s very well made!) but nothing seemed to help.

Then earlier this week, I picked it up , and noticed something about the pieces that I’d not noticed before. And moments later, the pieces were all neatly packed into the large container, I slid the lid closed, and sat back with a smug look on my face. (Then I got back to work, writing that document).

This is a really good little puzzle, and well worth a play. If you’re interested in trying to acquire a copy, give me a shout and I’ll pass you David and Dor’s contact information, to see if they have any left. I think you’ll like it!

Edit: Thanks to fellow puzzler Theo, who not only pointed out a mistake in my sizes above, but also made a copy for himself, having checked the dimensions with me, he found two solutions! I’ve corrected the sizes above, and looks like I’m back to trying to find a second solution!

Shake Something

In the recent batch of puzzles from Eric Fuller, Shake Something caught my eye. From a new designer, Dan Fast, this packing puzzle uses four burr pieces in a box to create an interesting challenge. It’s always good to see a new designer creating puzzles which are both fun and different, and when they’re made by Eric, you know they’ll be well made. In this case Eric’s living in the future, but it’s all good.

Shake Something by Dan Fast

Shake Something by Dan Fast

Made from a Walnut box with Paduak base and internal pins, with Yellowheart and Chakte Viga pieces the puzzle looks great. 38 copies were made for sale, and all sold out quickly, as is common for Eric’s puzzles. It’s a good sign for Dan, and I look forward to seeing more of his designs.

The pieces have a superb contrast, and do make the solution easier. It’s a good sized puzzle, measuring 2.5″ x 2.5″ x 2.825″ making manipulation of the pieces easy. Eric mentioned that there was plenty of room inside the puzzle for wood movement, however I’ve found from my own copy that a couple of the pieces are rather tight. The last piece to come out, I actually believed was glued into the box by the blocks on the walls and didn’t come out. As it happens, it was just an incredibly tight fit, and with a little encouragement it did come out. The pieces are all burr style pieces, and all feel solid so there’s no worry about breaking anything. Equally, the pins are well attached to the box, so they’re unlikely to come off without some serious abuse.

The goal of the puzzle is to remove the burr pieces and return them to their box. What makes the puzzle different is that for the most part, it’s not possible to manipulate the pieces directly, but instead you need to shake, turn and jiggle the box to move the pieces. To make things more interesting, the internal blockages in the box remain hidden, meaning you can’t see the interactions between the pieces, and need to carefully observe and react to the obstructions you find.

Shake Something pieces

Shake Something pieces

In total, there are 14 moves required to remove the first piece, with a total complexity of 14.2.4. I found that removing the pieces wasn’t too much of a challenge, taking around 5 minutes, however I didn’t pay all that much attention to how the pieces came out, and left them scrambled before trying to put them back into the box. I think this was my own folly, as I thought it was fairly straight forward when taking it apart.

As it turns out, I had a much bigger challenge putting it back together, and it took several hours over a few nights to get it back to the starting position. As I mentioned previously, given that I have one piece which I thought was stuck in place, I was only having to worry about 3 pieces, as there was one which had to be in the right place and orientation. Still I got lots of puzzling for my money!

Shake Something's knobbly box

Shake Something’s knobbly box

With all the pieces removed, you can see the blocks on the inside of the box which interact with the burr pieces, and make the puzzle both challenging, and a lot of fun. Having solved the puzzle without the need for help, I was pretty happy, so took the expected step of plugging the puzzle into Burr Tools, and seeing what it came up with. Apparently there are 1924 ways that the pieces can fit in the box, but only 3 ways to assemble the pieces. That means that if you didn’t have the walls of the box glued together, there would be 1924 ways to put the pieces together, however with them glued up, only 3 of the possible combinations can be assembled into the solution. I feel pretty good having found one of the three on my own. It’s certainly manageable, and I highly recommend that you give it a try before just asking Burr Tools to help.

Eric is living in the Future

Eric is living in the Future

No doubt I confused you at the start of my post, by suggesting Eric was living in the future. Looking at how he signed this box, perhaps my comment makes more sense. Apparently Eric made this in May 2015. Guess I slept well last night! (Either that or Eric has a time machine, and I’d really like to borrow it!)