Burrglar - Peter Hajek & William Strijbos by Pelikan

This is a very clever puzzle that I really enjoyed, I’m often struck by puzzles with only three pieces that are so much fun, it reminds me of Stewart Coffin’s ‘Three Piece Block’ puzzle that has stumped many puzzlers! 

I originally missed Pelikan’s drop of this cool puzzle but thankfully they released a few more and quickly snatched up my copy, special thanks go out to Pelikan.

Here’s Pelikan’s description:

“Peter Hajek’s exchange puzzle at IPP40. This is a 3-piece burr with simple notches. You are even shown its solved state shape. So far so simple. The problem is that this thing was designed by Peter Hajek and Wil Strijbos.”

I decided to make a box to house the pieces disassembled so the ‘Tom foolery’ can be continued once you open the box, lol.

Box is Walnut/Ash/Canarywood with an Ash Sleeve.  Top and Bottom are Ambrosia Maple with Roasted Ash Slipfeathers.

The Mummy’s Curse - Harold Cataquet by Wayne Daniel

This is a puzzle that I’ve had my eye on over the years and finally was able to acquire it, and was Harold’s IPP 19 Exchange puzzle in London.

It’s another beautifully crafted puzzle by Wayne Daniel/Interlocking Puzzles and features 11 pieces that make a 4x4 cube as well as flat 8x8 square along with a 3x4x5 (similar to the well known ‘Pentomino Set’ brick shape).

You might think that finding a solution to either of these shapes would be easy but I can tell you it’s extremely difficult to find any one these.

I finally got around to making a box to house the assembled cube shape.  Box is Walnut and Bloodwood with a Maple Sleeve.  Top and Bottom are Zebrawood with Maple Slipfeathers.

Christmas Tree - Stephan Baumegger by Pelikan

This is a fun burr puzzle that I acquired from a fellow puzzler after having missed out on it at Pelikan’s release.

While not an overly difficult puzzle, I really enjoyed the subtle opening moves that Stephan incorporated into it.  The base is a cool added piece that I couldn’t stop twirling around..

Here’s a description from Kevin Sadler:

“I can't have a Christmas tree at home because the last time we did have one it was destroyed by the cats in a most upsetting manner. They are absolutely fascinated by it and whilst tinsel may look funny going in the front end, it very much is NOT funny when it exits the other! This year however I shall have a Christmas tree on display in my living room! It will be on my mantelpiece…it is a beautiful design from Stephan Baumegger. It looks like a burr puzzle but initial exploration shows that it is more like a wood chuck puzzle. A piece slides and then another and then I got stuck for a bit. After a close look at what was revealed I was able to proceed and after that quite rapidly has a pile o'pieces. The disassembly probably took me 10 minutes and was quite fun. The real challenge is to reassemble it with all the colours in the right place. The first couple of times I put it back together with great satisfaction only to realise that the light cubies weren't all aligned properly. It took me an extra 5 or 10 minutes of fiddling around before I got it right. This is a perfect seasonal gift and a nice little challenge for the new puzzler.”

I also added a box to store the puzzle inside, although I did make a mistake when I glued in the sleeve so now the puzzle needs to be disassembled to fit all the pieces inside.  Box is made from Peruvian Walnut & Bird’s Eye Maple with a Walnut Top and Bottom.  Slipfeathers are Roasted Ash and Fir.

Cascade by Tamás Vanyo

 I’m always on the look out for any puzzles made by Tamas and this particular one is an early copy he made in 2013, it features 9 pieces that need to be manoeuvred into a notched plate with a level move count of 3.2.2.3.3.3.3.2.3.

My guess is that this was likely a copy he made in pine to prove out the design and probably only a few copies made, don’t think it was ever made by anyone else.

Kukulkan by Yavuz Demirhan

When Yavuz sent out his newsletter about a new release of puzzles, this one really caught my eye.  It’s shipped assembled so how hard could it be, but don’t let that fool you as you can easily remove the first two pieces, however removing the remaining pieces is quite surprising.  Once you do finally get  all the pieces out, putting them back in is quite the challenge!

If you’d like to be put on Yavuz’s newsletter, send me a message and I’ll forward it along.

Here’s a brief description from Yavuz:

“There is a reason why (‘this puzzle is shipped assembled’) and I hope you will find it out very soon.  I just can tell there are 8 pieces, take them out and put them in!”

I made a Box to store my puzzle in out of Oak with Walnut Slipfeathers.

Penta Roof 2 by Osanori Yamamoto (2014)

This wonderful puzzle by Osanori is a great example of ‘good things come to those who wait’.  I had noticed on Osanori’s Facebook page (last fall) that he had decided to make this design (originally conceived in 2014), so I sent him a message asking for a copy.  Shipping to Canada wasn’t available so I asked him to include with an order to a fellow puzzler in the U.S.

I was thrilled to have received it this week and as usual Osanori’s work is spectacular.  As you can imagine from the title your goal is to place the familiar 12 pentomino pieces onto the very elaborate ‘roof’ shaped frame.

As I mentioned above the 12 solid pentomino pieces represent every combination of cubic blocks joined flat all possible ways, ‘P-V-T-Z-W-I-U-X-L-Y-N-F’.

Stewart Coffin used this magical set of puzzle pieces in his 3rd design and aptly named it ‘Pentablock’.  One of my first puzzles was one crafted by Wayne Daniel offered by ‘Interlocking Puzzles’ back in the early 2000’s.

They pack into a 3x4x5 box over 3900 different ways with none being easy, there are also a myriad of other shapes possible with these incredible pieces.

I also made a box to contain this set of pieces in the familiar 3x4x5 shape from Purpleheart, Wenge, Mahogany and Spalted Maple.

Broken Soma - Ken Irvine by Brian Menold

This is one of my favourite cube designs by Ken, of course it’s perfectly crafted by  Brian.

The ‘Broken’ aspect of this puzzle is really what trips up most solvers and makes for a great one to hand someone to solve.

Kevin blogged about it:

"Apparently, Ken had a wonderful idea to fiddle with the classic Soma cube (a puzzle that everyone should have in their collection). He decided that it was much too easy having a 7 piece puzzle to make a cube in one of 240 different ways. In his delightful/annoying way he decided to make it a 6 piece puzzle that only had one assembly! He named it the Broken Soma because he took the 3 voxel L-shape and broke each of the cubies in half before fixing them onto the 6 remaining pieces. Hence it is a "broken soma". Except, we all know the real reason it is so-named...it only takes a short ¼ hour or so before anyone playing with it decides that he has taken a perfectly reasonable puzzle and BROKEN it! It seems bloody impossible!"

Here's what Brian at Wood Wonders said:  

"All I need to say is "Ken Irvine" and you know that this puzzle is great. Ken's designs are always amazing. This design had me scratching my head for days. It seemed so simple! What am I missing? Then one day, Aha!!!! A terrific design!"

I have made a Box for this cool puzzle from Spalted Maple, Zebrawood, Walnut, Mahogany.