Beauy Kruse by Juno

I Finally grabbed a copy of Juno’s wonderful ‘Altekruse mod’ and what a spectacular puzzle it is!  I have always admired the Altekruse puzzles and in fact have made many versions as well,  most that I sold were stock pieces supplied by Jerry McFarland.  Once Juno released this version I knew I had to have one, thankfully there was still some available when I recently placed an order for Juno’s SDCB.  There are still a few available right now so be sure to grab yourself a copy at Pluredro

Here's Juno's Description:

This twelve-piece burr puzzle is quite big and it looks stunning. The puzzle is based on the famous Altekruse puzzle and its configuration is very similar to Juno's former design Burrliner Kruse produced by Mr Puzzle.

Thanks to the white colored end blocks, the orientation of the pieces is restricted and it gives a unique level 10-2 solution to the puzzle. Although, it might sound easier considering the numbers of moves to assemble/disassemble the puzzle, it is quite challenging and we are unsure how many burr lovers can actually solve the puzzle without any clue.

Two kinds of Juno's favorite timber, Bubinga and American Rock Maple are used for the puzzle. Both species are dense, and have gorgeous and characteristic grain. The puzzle is named after the suburb (Beaudesert) where we live and run our business.

The solution to this puzzle will be supplied upon request by Burr Tools file format.

Size: 122 mm x 122 mm x 122 mm

Number of pieces: 12

Material: Bubinga and American Rock Maple

Designer: Junichi Yananose (Juno)

Origin: Made in Australia

Rotothorpe #1 - Andrew Crowell by Wood Wonders

The twists and turns of this puzzle will certainly keep you guessing, so much so that I had to ask Andrew for the solution as I was afraid of possibly breaking one of the pieces!  

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

          

“Rotothorpe #1 is a really cool design in my opinion. I have always loved this type of puzzles. I know many people do not but this has been designed by Andrew Crowell so you know there will be a rotation or twist or something to confound you! Since this puzzle ships with a piece left out of the assembly the total moves of 17 is not applicable to your predicament. The Walnut version is made the same way as the padauk and purpleheart versions but with wooden dowels and not brass pins. There are over 20 brass pins epoxied into each puzzle for strength.”

Hat Trick - Laszlo Molnar by Wood Wonders

Here’s another gorgeous puzzle by Brian  and of course a great design by Laszlo!

I have a funny story about this puzzle, I had acquired this puzzle through the Discord and unbeknownst to me it had been shipped minus one ‘L’ piece.  Once I started to solve it with only five ‘L’ pieces I was surprised to find a solution within a matter of seconds!  I kept thinking did I get really lucky or was this puzzle trivial, it wasn’t until I looked over Brian’s original listing that I noticed my copy only had the five pieces.  Thankfully the missing piece was erroneously omitted from my puzzle and is on its way to me now.

                    

Woods are Curly Maple/Bolivian Rosewood Box with Bolivian Rosewood pieces

                    

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

“Of course I had to make a few extras when making the preorders, just in case something went wrong. Well, nothing went wrong, so you have one last chance to grab one while the supply lasts. Only 6 extras available.

This was one of two of Laszlo's entries into the IPP Design Competition and a TOP TEN Vote Getter. You know when Laszlo makes designs a packing puzzle that it will be a good one! I think this one has a difficult to find Aha! moment, making it even more satisfying.”

Tauon - Alexander Magyarics By Tom Burns

This is brilliant design by Alexander and another great Puzzle Printing by Tom Burns

If you haven’t been to his site I strongly urge you to head on over and check out all that he has available!

Here’s Tom’s description:

“I’ve developed a bit of an affinity for Alex's caged burr designs - his ability to reliably get interesting moves out of the same format is nothing short of remarkable.

Tauon is the latest I've chosen to print - three congruent pieces and a fairly open cage still lead you on a 20+ move journey to get the first piece loose.”

Helical Burr 2 - Derek Bosch by Two Brass Monkeys

This puzzle ramps up the difficulty level quite a bit from Derek’s original version!

I can certainly attest to the difference in difficulty of this second version of Derek’s Helical Burr!  It seems like it took me an eternity to simply disassemble the four pieces.

Here’s the description from Puzzlemaster:

“A twisted concept that will stimulate your dna! 

Although the "Heel Lick All Bare, Too" puzzle looks a little like the Helical Burr, and the name even sounds like it too, that is where the similiarity ends.

The Heel Lick All Bare, Too! puzzle is Derek Bosch's latest Helical design and is a major step up in difficulty.   It can be solved in 39 steps, and has several dead ends making it much harder than the 11 moves required for Derek's original design. The goal of the puzzle is simply to disassemble and reassemble the four pieces.

This puzzle has been printed in PLA with each print taking just over 18 hours to complete. It's unusually geometry is ideally suited for 3D printing. It has been produced by the Two Brass Monkeys.

The Two Brass Monkeys are Ali Morris and Steve Nicholls. They are two long time puzzle collectors (who each have 1000's of puzzles!).  They live near each other in the UK and are regular attendees at International and UK Puzzle Events.  

Their philosophy is simple! They make puzzles that they have designed and also designs by others that they would like to have in their collections. They have produced many puzzles in metal but are continually looking to expand their range of both materials and manufacturing techniques.”

Puzzle Guy on YouTube has a spoiler video.

 

Helical Burr - Derek Bosch by Two Brass Monkeys

Wow, this puzzle has some crazy moves that I just can’t seem to wrap my brain around!  I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out the movements but I end up just randomly moving the pieces back and forth until about what appears to be the midway point only to get completely stuck!

So after finally getting it completely apart, now it’s hopelessly stalled at about the midway point again!  Definitely a brain twister on disassembly or assembly!

Thankfully Kevin has an assembly video

This puzzle is a very cool design by Derek and 3D printed by the gents at Two Brass Monkeys.

Here’s the description from Puzzlemaster:

“A twisted concept that will stimulate your dna!  Helical Burr is Derek Bosch's awarding winning puzzle design. It took the Jury Grand Prize in the 2013 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition.  It was, and remains, a highly original puzzle design. The four cylindrical pieces twist and turn to form a solid cylinder.

The goal of the puzzle is simply to disassemble and reassemble the four pieces. There are two possible assemblies, one is very simple (a key piece screws out), the other takes 11 moves as the pieces dance around each other.

If you have never solved a Helical design before, the Helical Burr is the perfect introduction. If you love the concept, try your hand at Helical Burr 2 (Heel Lick All Bare, Too!) which is a much more difficult burr than the original version.

This puzzle has been printed in PLA by the Two Brass Monkeys, with each print taking 17.5 hours to complete.  It is ideally suited for 3D printing since no craftsman has been brave enough to make one (so far!) using any other technique.

The Two Brass Monkeys are Ali Morris and Steve Nicholls. They are two long time puzzle collectors (who each have 1000's of puzzles!).  They live near each other in the UK and are regular attendees at International and UK Puzzle Events.  

Their philosophy is simple! They make puzzles that they have designed and also designs by others that they would like to have in their collections. They have produced many puzzles in metal but are continually looking to expand their range of both materials and manufacturing techniques.”

Puzzle Guy on YouTube has a spoiler video.

6BB Oddly Extended Version #01

Please visit Pluredro to see all that’s available, here’s the description:

“Juno has been experimenting with several kinds of ideas to improve 6 Board Burr and this puzzle is one of them. If the length of the board burr pieces is simply extended from 6-unit length to 8, we can not expect higher numbers of movement for assembling and disassembling since the filled area (block) strongly restricts the possible movement. Simply extending the blank area (voids) also causes another issue since it makes the puzzle too unstable when being assembled. Then, how about extending the length of the pieces and partially extending the blank area?

The idea was very advantageous, and Juno immediately found several candidate puzzles that require up to 24 moves to take the first piece apart. Therefore, we might produce the second and the third version of the puzzle using different combinations of the pieces and we put #1 to the name of this puzzle.

The #1 has a unique level 19-11-4-2 solution and relatively small numbers of 84 assemblies. Juno believes that the puzzle has no possible rotational shortcuts although some pieces have room to rotate a little while assembling/disassembling. Of course, the puzzle is arduous, but some serious solvers will be able to assemble the puzzle not knowing the orientation of the pieces. Some of you might feel the similarity of the puzzle to his Grooved 6 Board Burrseries when you play with it.

The puzzle is quite big, and it weighs 360g. It took about 3.5 hours just for CNC work to cut a set of 6 pieces. All the sharp corners are beveled.

The puzzle is sold assembled. The solution to this puzzle will be supplied upon request by Burr Tools file format.”

Size: 128 mm x 128 mm x 128 mm

Number of pieces: 6

Material: PNG Rosewood and New Guinea Walnut (Anacardiaceae family tree)

Designer: Junichi Yananose (Juno)

Origin: Made in Australia

Fraternal Twins - George Sicherman by Wood Wonders

I acquired this puzzle and can confirm its definitely more difficult than it appears!

My copy was crafted from Benji and Alder and is shown in the bottom photos.

“George Sicherman is great at coming up with these little gems. Take these two identically shaped pieces and assemble them in a way that they form a shape with mirror symmetry. I decided to make one version where the cubes are made from two woods to try to introduce a little visual confusion. There is also a single wood version at a bit of a savings. This is not as easy as it may seem.”

Three-Piece Block - Design #38 - Stewart Coffin by Wood Wonders

Stewart wrote this:

“This puzzle has an interesting history. The one symmetrical face of the assembled puzzle happens to resemble a certain corporate logo. The company wanted a simple puzzle incorporating this pattern for some sort of promotional scheme. So the arrangement of six of the blocks was already determined. All that was required to complete the design was the addition of four more blocks in a sort of triangular pyramid and a judicious choice of glue joints to make it into an interesting interlocking puzzle. So the company got what they wanted - except for one thing. It turned out to be anything but simple! Do not be discouraged if you cannot solve it straight away - it has baffled experts!”

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

“This classic Stewart Coffin design was one of the first puzzles I ever made. And to this day remains one of my favorites. It contains all of the elements that are inherent in a great puzzle, relatively few pieces, an elegant look when solved and the impression that it is much easier than it really is!”

Purpleheart 

Bolivian Ebony

Macacauba

My copy is Lacewood

Burr Bot - Andrew Crowell

I managed to get one of these Sequential Discovery/Burr Puzzles Designed and 3D Printed by Andrew.

You can probably guess that most any of this type of puzzle are highly sought after, finding steps revealing items to help with solve are it’s obvious intent. 

If you’d like to acquire this particular puzzle you’ll need to be vigilant as they only come up in small batches and sell out almost instantly!  Announcement of upcoming releases are usually posted on the Puzzle Discord 

Be sure to visit Andrew Crowell’s Etsy shop arcWood Puzzles to see his 3D prints that are available!

Here’s what Andrew said:

“Burr Bot is a mischievous little robot. He has eaten something he shouldn't have. Can you open him up and retrieve what he ate?

As with all robots, he is quite logical and he does not like excessive force, to be shaken, or hit. Be careful he also has magnets and small parts. 

Burr Bot is combination of a burr style puzzle (with interlocking pieces that can be moved around) and a sequential discovery puzzle (where tools can be discovered to help you solve the puzzle). He has been printed in Marble, Purple, Yellow, Gray, and Light Blue PLA. He does also include a number of magnets. Good Luck!”

PackTIC Series by Andrew Crowell

I have become quite fascinated with this series of puzzles by Andrew!  I had acquired Wood versions of both PackTIC #5 and #6 by Brian at  Wood Wonders so ultimately decided I needed to try all versions that Andrew has available.

I initially had #1 & #2 with the remaining ones arriving today!

If you’re a fan of the TIC type puzzles you owe it yourself to try them out!  Here’s my full review:

I initially tried PackTIC #1 and gave up and moved on to #2 and solved it after a bit of effort so decided to give #1 another go..well let’s just say my dyslexia kicked in big time.  I struggled for what seemed like forever with no luck getting it almost assembled except for what I thought was the last piece, that as it turns out was the first piece that needed to be placed!  

#3 was a somewhat easier task, however it required a little more planning with some tricky moves to assemble it!

#4 had a very cool assembly with one seemingly impossible piece placement that took a bit of time to finagle in!

#5 had me completely stumped and had to enlist the help of Andrew via Burrtools to get me over the hump!  Even after having both the Wood version and this printed one I still can’t disassemble it without BurrTools!

#6 was a very entertaining solve that I didn’t have too much trouble with!

#7 had a very tricky move involving two pieces that I initially thought couldn’t happen but it finally found its way home!

#8 will have to wait as I’ve moved on to the next one..

#9 is quite a tricky solve but did not give me too much trouble!

#10 this one has me stumped as well!

So after getting stumped on #8 and #10 I enlisted the help for both via burrtools from Andrew and I’ve come to the conclusion that neither are solvable with my mediocre skills, they require such unbelievable moves that I had a hard time understanding them even with the help of burrtools!  If you fancy yourself a truly gifted puzzle solver than I strongly urge you to grab a set of these and give them a go, but be forewarned they will torment you, especially #8 which is truly diabolical!!

Be sure to visit Andrew Crowell’s Etsy shop arcWood Puzzles to see his 3D prints that are available!

Here’s what Andrew said:

“These are 3D printed turning interlocking cube puzzles I designed.

The goal is to make a complete cube out of all of the pieces. 

PackTIC - 7 Pieces, 15 Total moves, and at least 3 rotations are required to solve.

PackTIC 2 - 6 Pieces, 22 Total moves, and 6 rotations required.

PackTIC 3 - 6 Pieces, 21 Total moves, and 5 rotations required. 

PackTIC 4 - 7 Pieces, 17 Total moves, and 5 rotations required. 

PackTIC 5 - 7 Pieces, 23 Total moves, and 5 rotations required. 

PackTIC 6 - 5 Pieces, 15 Total moves, and 4 rotations required.

PackTIC 7 - 5 Pieces, 19 Total moves, and 7 rotations required. 

PackTIC 8 - 6 Pieces, 13 Total moves, and 3 rotations required. 

PackTIC 9 - 7 Pieces, 17 Total moves, and 4 rotations required. 

PackTIC 10 - 7 Pieces, 18 Total moves, and at least 5 rotations required. “