Inelegant Soma - Haym Hirsh by Wood Wonders

This is the second puzzle that I have from this series and I really enjoyed it, not overly difficult but still confusing to assemble nonetheless.

Here's Brian Menold’s Description at   Wood Wonders:

“From the "Man of a thousand Soma variations" comes this latest clever design. Similar looking to the previously released "Inelegant cube and Inelegant Box" this uses slightly modified Soma pieces to offer the challenge. Three version are offered. One is a signed, dated and numbered copy using some very expensive Pink Ivory wood (only 8 were made). Along with two other very attractive versions, these all come with the stand for display and solving. Ships assembled”.

Mosaic - Stewart Coffin (Unnumbered Design) by John Devost (2021)

Stewart Coffin designed this puzzle back in 1979 and it’s an 8-piece interlocking 4x4 cube.  It wasn’t until I recently made a physical copy that I realized what Stewart meant by ‘almost serially interlocking’ and frankly I think I should leave that tidbit of information for future craftsman to discover themselves.  

As we know this design would eventually morph into his now legendary ‘Convolution’ Design #30 that would be revised into his ‘Involution’  design #198 and revised yet again into his ‘Involute’ design #214.

The ‘Convolution’ puzzle had the distinction of having a piece that had a very clever ‘Turning’ movement that Bill Cutler would eventually do a complete analysis on showing how it’s only mathematically possible with the edges slightly chamfered.

Oddly enough I never made any of this design back when I was puzzlemaking, but always kept it in my thoughts as years ago I was contacted to make this particular puzzle as an IPP exchange.  The dreaded thought of making over a hundred puzzles of the same design was simply overwhelming.  The most of any one puzzle design I ever made was 25, I always found that to be my limit otherwise it seemed to much like a job and took all the fun out of it!

I managed to get some BAZ Building Blocks and thought that I’d give them a go and make this copy.  I used a variety of woods in keeping with the puzzle’s namesake.

I also revisited a Stand design I made some years ago it’s simply two pieces that interlock together to form a cross shape and displays the puzzle quite nicely.

It too was made with various length BAZ stock to give it ‘Mosaic’ look.

Here’s what Stewart wrote about it:

“Mosaic is an 8-piece dissection of a 4x4x4 cube, designed in 1979.  I must have made one but have no record. The one known solution is shown here, but perhaps there are others.  It is almost serially interlocking.  An improved version became Convolution (#30).”

Saturn’s Hexagon - Stewart Coffin #X-83-X by Bart Buie

This is a curious puzzle because currently Stewart’s latest Compendium only details up to Design #X-83 and it clearly describes cubes in a jar.  I will have to let it go at that until I find out more info.  There is a mention of a design called ‘Final Exam’, perhaps this is it?

This puzzle has been expertly crafted by Bart using spheres.  Pieces need to be assembled into a shape that then needs to fit in this amazing Hexagon Box and subsequently placing the lid on it!

I think it’s fitting that I should quote Stewart with his dream mentioned at the close of his latest updated Compendium:  

“Parting Shot

I had the strangest dream the other night. As I gingerly approached The Gates, I found myself confronted by Saint Peter with his dreaded entrance exam in hand. 

“Well my son,” he asked, “what have you to show for the life you have led?” 

And I replied: “Well, I suppose I did have a hand, so to speak, in bringing three wonderful daughters into the world.”

“Yes, we know all about that. Anything else?” “Not a helluva a lot. Oh well, I do like to think of myself as the creator of AP-ART.”  “Sure, we know all about that too. But of what significance might 

that be in terms of overall human destiny?”  “Ah yes, I’ve often wondered about that myself. I truly gave it my 

best effort. I suppose only time will tell.”

“Good answer. And I see you’ve brought some of your creations along with you. Might we have a look?”  He takes a look. 

“I wonder if we might have a simple one to play with here at The Gates when times get slack. How about that one? It certainly appears to be the easiest of the lot.”  So I handed Martin’s Menace to Pete (disassembled of course), continued on my way, and vanished into oblivion up amongst the clouds.”

Rhombsticks - Stewart Coffin #268-A

’Rombo’ IPP 34 London Exchange by Bart Buie

This is a very confusing puzzle, expertly crafted by Bart using Bubinga, Wenge and Yellowheart.

Stewart wrote:

“Prompted by the Sixticks discoveries, I decided to try working with rhombic 

sticks rather than square, and this is where things got really interesting. There are six possible pieces and they assemble a great many different ways, some more interesting than others. I use 85-95degree rhombic sticks for experimental pieces, although other angles will work just as well.

I attempted a complete analysis of all possible combinations but ran into some complications. While doing this, I discovered something that had until recently escaped my attention. In my initial woodworking with Rhombticks, I found I had unknowingly been making two kinds of pieces that were 

mutually incompatible. In setting up the saw jig, there are three angles to consider – the tilt of the saw 

table, the feed angle relative to the miter grooves, and the tilt of the rhombic sticks forward or backward.  Choosing these randomly can lead to much 

confusion. After making one set of pieces, reversing any one angle produces a second set of pieces

incompatible with the first. But reverse any two of those angles and you are right back where you started. 

One set of pieces will produce what I call the Squat solution, while the other set will produce the Upright solution. To simplify things (if that is even possible) I have limited my investigations to only the Squat version. This puzzling investigation is still ongoing.”

Long & Short - Stewart Coffin Design #20-D by Bart Buie

I received this puzzle recently and i have to admit that my puzzle work pales in comparison to Bart’s superior craftsmanship!  The puzzle just begs to be picked up and played with, the fit and the ‘Bleached Wenge’ is a first for me, it really looks cool!

Bart wrote:

“This one was unique because I bleached the Wenge wood to get the zebra effect”

Here’s an excerpt from Jerry’s Blog:

“This is an interesting Stewart Coffin designed puzzle that was exchanged by Rob Jones at IPP37 in Paris this past August. It’s also my first “pin-hole” puzzle from Coffin. Looking at the photos you will probably realise why its called Long & Short. This design is designated STC 20-D. Outwardly, the Long & Short looks like an ordinary six-piece burr made out of exotic wood (in this case its Wenge) but really its an interlocking puzzle of sorts using a combination of pins inserted into holes.”

Burr Lock “E” - Christoph Lohe by CubicDissection

Wow, this puzzle is not only a great design by Christoph but Eric went above and beyond with beautiful craftsmanship!  Almost all of the mitered joints are reinforced with contrasting slipfeathers!

Here's Eric's description from Cubicdissection:

“I've been in communication with Christoph for ages regarding these locks. This is design E; several earlier iterations were discarded because the solution was ruined by unintended rotational shortcuts. He kept at the design though, and I'm glad he did because he finally came up with a big winner! Burr Lock E has two separate solutions depending on the orientation of the key. The vertical orientation is level 26 and the horizontal level 13 incuding rotations. A very fun, very challenging puzzle!

Construction of this puzzle is superlative. Everything really came together with this one...fit is perfect and the reinforcing splines and unconventional cage joinery make this a real gem, made from Honduran Mahogany, Ash and Bocote”

Whale Type 1 by Osamu Kasho - Karakuri

I don’t usually blog about puzzleboxes and even less about Japanese puzzleboxes, but this particular one is such a cool piece.

One of our big events in our ‘neck of the woods’ is Whale watching in the Bay of Fundy (home of the largest tides in the world) so you could say this puzzles has a connection for me.

This little puzzle box is very cool with a clever mechanism.  It is very nicely crafted from Walnut and Mikuzi (Dogwood).  The fit, finish and design of this puzzle is quite astounding and I can definitely see why many collect ‘Karakuri’ puzzles!

Here’s a Description from Osamu:

"Same mechanism as Christmas present for 2017, Baby whale. I remade bigger a little than before and added a box for storage. A Karakuri box of friendly faced whale. It’s not difficult to open. You can peek inside its mechanism. It’s simple mechanism, but please enjoy to see how all parts are linked after you solve this.”

“Karakuri Box”, is a box, with a mechanism made from the individual ideas of craftsmen based on the traditional craft of the Hakone and Odawara region, known as the “secret box”.

Rhombic Maze Burr - Derek Bosch by Trifcho

This is a very cool puzzle that I recently acquired.

It’s a 3D Printed version of Derek Bosch’s Rhombic Maze Burr puzzle, it comes in a neat pouch with a magnet tool and extra pins enabling the repositioning of the maze plates.  I can certainly confirm that this puzzle is very smooth in operation!

The rhombic Maze Burr is Derek’s evolution of Kagen’s Maze Burr from Cubic to Rhombic Dodecahedral geometry. 

Derek has a booklet that contains 50 of many possible configurations for the 12 maze plates, requiring from 31 to 379 moves to solve!

You can see a video demo from the manufacturer Trifcho

Box with Two Balls - Christoph Lohe by Wood Wonders

This is a cool design very nicely crafted by Brian!

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

"Another of Chris’s designs that I loved was this beauty. I loved the idea of the three captive pieces. The goal is simple. Removed the two steel balls from the box. The wood pieces inside the box do not come out. The acrylic sides help you to see what is going on and I used three contrasting woods for the pieces in the box to help distinguish them from one another."

Kevin has a nice blog about it

Stumbling Blocks - Pit Khiam Goh by Tom Lensch

Much like Pit’s ‘Road Blocks’ tray puzzle this one appears to be easy but is anything but!  Tom did a masterful job on this one with great attention to the finer details.

Here’s an excerpt from Allard’s Blog 

“Consisting of a simple frame with a base on it and four simple pieces, your object is to insert the four little pieces into the frame… of course there are a few protruding tabs on the pieces that get in the way a little and then there’s the little matter of the tiniest little cut off corners on one side of each piece and matching little triangular fillers in the frame…”

Road Blocks - Pit Khiam Goh by Tom Lensch

This is a great puzzle by Pit, expertly crafted by Tom!

Although it initially appears as though solving shouldn’t take too long but let tell you it’s quite difficult.

Here’s an excerpt from Jerry’s Blog:

“The object of the puzzle is to fill the four (almost) identical shaped pieces into the box. Not really your usual packing puzzle as you will notice the inside of the box is surrounded by a channel and each of the pieces is formed by two squarish flat blocks of wood sandwiching a third which protrudes. It would be obvious that the blocks are not going to go in straight just like that into the box. Like a lot of Goh Pit Khiam designed puzzles, this is a packing puzzle which although looks relatively simple in appearance, is anything but.”

Rectilinear - Pit Khiam Goh by Tom Lensch

I was surprised by this tray puzzle from Tom, at first glance it appears somewhat trivial but once you start to try to solve all of the challenges it becomes quite clear how clever this puzzle is!

Here’s an excerpt from Kevin’s blog:

“This is a series of 5 challenges all marked out by lovely laser etching inside the tray. The aim is to place the start and end pieces as shown in the tray and then place the other pieces so as to create a single continuous pathway to join them together (the walnut squares are blank fillers)

It looks easy, doesn't it?”

Dancing Shoes - Pit Khiam Goh by Tom Lensch

Tom did wonderful work on this tray puzzle, and I recently acquired it from him, it’s crafted from Walnut, Redheart and Maple.

Here’s Jerry’s Description from his Blog:

“Dancing Shoes won the Puzzler's Award at IPP33 in Tokyo, Japan this year. This award goes to the design entry that had garnered the most votes from the IPP33 attendees. This was Goh's first puzzle design award but unfortunately he was not present in Tokyo to collect his prize in person.

Overview

I first handled this puzzle at IPP33 during the two days judging process of the design entries. Given I had to go through around sixty puzzle designs, I didn't have the time (nor stamina) to try to solve it. Since Goh and I both live in Singapore, I was pretty sure I would be able to get my hands on a copy from him to play with at some subsequent date.

Just several weeks back, Goh contacted me to ask if I wanted a copy from him as Tom had sent over to him several copies which had just been newly made. Of course I said a resounding yes! 

The object of Dancing Shoes is the fit all five loose pieces flat into the tray. The tray itself is rather unusual in that the four corners have an L-shaped protrusion . At first glance, you might think that you can arrange the five pieces outside the tray to get the correct formation and then try to fit the pieces one at a time into the tray. Well this is what I tried initially only to discover (and I should really have known better) that this is impossible. The pieces won't fit in the way you want them to.

This is a packing puzzle with a twist; you need to think beyond the traditional methods of solving, which obviously will not work here. I am not good with packing puzzles so I grappled with Dancing Shoes for quite a while before finally hitting upon the solution. However I had the benefit of seeing how a couple of Goh's other puzzle designs work so I had an idea to the possible solution for Dancing Shoes. 

Difficulty Level

Challenging enough but not unduly difficult. It's not a puzzle that would frustrate one to wits' end (although it possibly might for some people). Its one of those puzzles that spur you to puzzle on because everything is there in front of you, doesn't seem to look that difficult, yet the solution is somehow rather elusive! 

Summary

Another great puzzle design from a prolific puzzle designer. Good quality too. Well deserving of the IPP33 Puzzlers' Award and definitely a must-have for the collector.or packing puzzle enthusiast”

Cubie Burr - Bill Cutler - 2001 by Tom Lensch

This clever design simply amazes me with only three pieces yet quite tricky to assemble!  Tom has used some gorgeous Canarywood and Walnut along with Cherry on the interior.

Bill did exhaustive research on 6-Piece burrs, you can see more about it on his reference page:

Here’s Bill’s Description, be sure to drop by his website to see what’s available:

“The basic design is that of a 3-piece burr GigaBurr which has been expanded to a 5x5x5 cube by gluing on edge and corner pieces. A complete computer analysis of all such designs was run over the winter of 2000-2001. The highest level found in this analysis is 6. (For comparison the highest level for a 3-piece burr is 8.) Three different level-6 disassembly sequences were found.

This was my souvenir puzzle at the 21st International Puzzle Party”

Magiq #8 - Jerry Loo by Tom Lensch

This terrific puzzle is typical of Tom’s outstanding puzzle craftsmanship!

Here’s Jerry’s Description from his Blog

“My first entry was called Magiq#8 and the goal (as can be seen from the photos) is to re-arrange the 5 pieces and change the #8 to a #0. Saying "abracadabra" would certainly help! I didn't manage to win any prizes...but hey, its the participation that counts right? 

Although this year's design bears some resemblance to my entry at last year's IPP competition, the "69", the Magiq#8 is totally different in terms of the solve. My design was expertly crafted by Tom Lensch and consists of exotic woods comprising walnut, holly, shedua and yellowheart. Construction, fit and finish is excellent and I particularly liked the perimeter trim added by Tom to the top edge of the box.

Its not as straight forward a packing puzzle as one might expect and there is a trick to it. No spoilers so I shall not say anymore. What's the difficulty level? I can't say as I have not received any feedback so far, although puzzler Marc Pawliger did casually mention to me in the competition room that he found it quite devilish...”

Numlock - Pit Khiam Goh by Tom Lensch

Years ago I thought I had experienced this ‘nary’ type of puzzle with Pit’s ‘Ternary Burr’ but as it turns out, not so much.  I recently had a chat with the authority on this subject Michel Van Ipenburg and he had this to say about it:

“I consider the ‘Ternary Burr not the best example of a ‘pure’ ternary puzzle.  It’s a complex burr with some ternary elements.  Once the centrepiece is out the ternary sequence is done and the puzzle that remains is an ‘ordinary’ burr (a beautiful one, but quite difficult).

Numlock is a more pure ternary puzzle.  The sliders and knobs follow a predictable logical pattern that will move forward or backwards, nothing else.  Once the first slider is removed the puzzle is basically done. To go back to the start (without opening it) takes the exact same number of moves in reversed order.”

Here’s Jerry’s Description from his Blog:

“NumLock was Goh Pit Khiam's entry for the IPP34 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition in London this past August. 

This is a "N-ary" puzzle. Don't ask me what it means because I don't really know, but it has something to do with mathematics. For an explanation of N-ary puzzles, you may wish to refer to Dr. Goetz Schwandtner's dedicated N-ary puzzles page on his website. My only other experience with an N-ary puzzle is the Lock 250.

Made by Tom Lensch, the NumLock comprises three woods; Cherry, Canarywood and East Indian Rose Wood. As with all Tom Lensch puzzles, the quality of construction and finish is excellent. All the pieces fit nicely and slide smoothly.

The object is to remove all the pieces from the box frame which consist of 4 sliders interacting with 6 moving blocks (with finger holes).The sliders and blocks all move in linear fashion.

According to Goh, a staggering 143 moves is required to extract the first piece. From my very limited understanding of N-ary puzzles, they usually comprise a repeating sequence of moves to solve, unlike high level burrs with a similar number of moves, so technically speaking, they are somewhat easier (not easy). 

As I was trying to solve the NumLock, I really couldn't figure out the sequence although I did detect some sort of a pattern. Well, repeating sequence or not, I was quite happy when I finally got the first piece out, after a good while of fiddling! Did I take a 143 moves? I don't know....would have lost count along the way anyway. I figured I would not be able to reassemble the pieces so I didn't bother trying.”

For more info about nary puzzles see Goetz Schwandtner page 

Spend Me Not - Kelly Snache

Kelly typically mentions his newest offerings on Facebook and he posted this rather cryptic description about his most recent:

“Spend Me Not - Perhaps an odd puzzle, but then it is best experienced when given away, or received for that matter. 

The puzzle comes with the butterfly, and it's up to you to fill it with a great gift card.”

Kelly has also noted that this is a rather simple design but I can’t really comment about that as I’ve yet to crack the code and open this PuzzleBox!

My copy features some beautiful Satinwood with Purpleheart edging.

Be sure to drop by Kelly’s Etsy shop to see what he has available at 

 Mystery by Design