Four in the Vice - Stephane Chomine (2012) by Maurice Vigouroux

This very cool burr design by Stephane was beautifully crafted by Maurice and it was generously gifted to me by a fellow puzzle friend.

I was I initially confused by it as it appears to be an 8 piece burr, however it actually has a couple of the burr pieces melded together effectively turning them into frame pieces making it a 6 piece burr (4 burr pieces in 2 frame pieces).

It features a rather high level move count of 12.1.2.1. and is surprisingly difficult to take apart! 

This design was also crafted by Brian Young and Frans de Vreugd used it as his IPP Exchange gift in Washington.  I wonder how many puzzlers still have it ‘unsolved’ in their collection, lol.

Coincidentally this is the first puzzle I’ve ever had that was crafted by Maurice so thought I should share his biography from Puzzle Place:

“Maurice Vigouroux has been making puzzles for 50 years in his workshop in Saugues, a village located in the high plateau called Massif Central in France.

In the 1990's, he starts to study the possibility to add layers of pieces to existing puzzles in order to make bigger ones. This period culminates with the making of an amazing version of the Altekruse burr puzzle made of 88 copies of the original Altekruse puzzle all linked together. The final move consisting of pushing 144 of the pieces at once into the 144 others ! At the same time, he made a 330 piece traditionnal burr, some diagonal burrs including the 102 piece design by John Pinnel, that can be seen in Stewart Coffin's books, a lot of different 6-piece crosses, copies of the famous 66 piece Cutler cube, and many more various designs. All of these puzzles were made in Carolina pine.

Then, in the 2000's he starts working with exotic woods and sells his puzzles in local craftsmanship fairs. Copies of Stewart Coffin's Jupiter puzzle, and some complicated caged burrs found in Ishino's Puzzle Will Be Played repository were made during this period.

Around 2010, the meeting with Stéphane Chomine and Guillaume Largounez starts the race to make the highest level burrs, while Jean-Baptiste Jacquin opens Arteludes, a web shop devoted to Maurice Vigouroux's works. Since then, designs by Alfons Eyckmans, Stéphane Chomine, Donald Osselaer, Gregory Benedetti and many others are regularly made in small quantites. The Millenium, a board burr featuring 1000 moves to get the two first pieces out, the Supernova, the 166 move 18 piece burr of Alfons Eyckmans and Jack Krijnen, as well as the miniature 18 piece puzzle in brass, no bigger than a nail, are from this period.

Maurice Vigouroux's puzzles are usually made without gluing. The internal angles are made with a horizontal mortiser and a chisel. Gluing pieces is only used as a last resort, for cages like in the Nickel Box, for frames like in the Millenium, of for very complex parts, like in the Daedalus or in the Blind Burr.”