Inelegant Snakes - Haym Hirsh by Wood Wonders

This is a wonderful puzzle by Brian, while not overly difficult it will keep you busy for a while.  Once you do finally assemble it, your rewarded with an outstanding display piece with its beautiful stand!

I’m hoping to acquire the other four puzzles in this series so if anyone reading this has any, please let me know in the comments.

Here's what Brian said:  Please visit Wood Wonders to stay informed of his wonderful puzzle offerings!

"Haym's at it again. Here is his latest "Inelegant" offering. Inelegant Snakes uses the offset L piece that was used in his Snake Pack design. Except this puzzle uses both a left and right hand piece and they are made from the same 3x4x5 unit cubes as the other Inelegant puzzles. There will be holes on two opposing corners and a void in the center of the solved cube but the outside edges should all be even. And it comes with a nice stand for displaying. The pieces are each made from 4 woods, Sucupira, Red Zebrawood, Marblewood and Mango."

L-I-Vator I & II - Laszlo Molnar by Wood Wonders

This is another awesome puzzle by Brian crafted with an Okoume Box with a restrictive opening.  The Yellowheart pieces took me a bit of manoeuvring to get them all in. Solving the second challenge with the Padauk pieces took me quite a bit more time but Allard’s blog post (link below) gave me just the clue I needed to persevere!  I’m quite fond of these type of packing puzzles and highly recommend grabbing one of these if you should find one on the secondary market.  It’s a great design by Laszlo featuring two puzzles in one!

You should also check out Allard’s Blog about this puzzle, he has some good insight into the solving process!

Here's what Brian said:  Please visit Wood Wonders to stay informed of his wonderful puzzle offerings!

“Two puzzles for the price of one!

From the amazing mind of my friend Laszlo Molnar comes these two gems. Packing puzzles with rotations are not one of my strong suits but I love these! The same box but two different sets of pieces. Each set is similar in that each piece builds on the the previous one by adding a single unit cube. But the pieces are very different beyond the first few. Two distinct and rather difficult challenges in one.”

BURR IN CUBE #1 - Jürg van Känel by 'Interlocking Puzzles' - Wayne Daniel

This puzzle is very well crafted by 'Interlocking Puzzles' back in 2000.  The quality of craftsmanship is really second to none.  I've personally had many puzzles from 'Interlocking Puzzles' from this era and they truly are outstanding!

Jürg wrote this:

"If we look at regular 6-piece burrs, it can easily be seen that they can be enclosed in a cube.  I was interested in the question 'What is the highest level of a six-piece burr puzzle which has a unique solution outside the cube and can also be assembled inside the cube?'.

Unfortunately for notchable burrs the answer is none.  However, there are a few notchable burrs which are level 4 and unique when assembled inside a cube, but they are lower level and not unique when assembled outside.

'Burr in a Cube #1' is the level 4 notchable six-piece burr with the least number of internal voids."

This puzzle wasJürg van Känel IPP Entry in the 2001 Design Competition