Saturday, June 18, 2022

Quadlock 1 by Jerry McFarland - 1992



Jerry had been crafting mostly Bill Cutler puzzle designs prior to releasing this design in ‘92.  His background in engineering led him to a novel automation of his burr notching method that allows such precise notches.  I originally started making Bill’s packing puzzles for him to sell on his website in the mid 2000’s and struck up a friendship with Jerry at that time.  Once I began offering puzzles for Eric to sell on Cubicdissection I soon asked Jerry if he wanted to sell some of his work there as well and that’s when he sold a run of these very cool Quadlock 1 puzzles.


Here’s Jerry’s description of the Quadlock designs:


“Quadlock 1 is a difficult to take apart 19 piece flattened cube puzzle.  Quadlock 3 is a similar 25 piece cube but with a completely different disassembly method.  It is more difficult than Quadlock 1 and requires 22 moves to get out the first piece.

Both puzzles are made with 7/8” Walnut, Mahogany and Maple.

Note:  Quadlock 2 was a 23 piece version of Quadlock 1.  Since it was very similar to Quadlock 1 only a few models were made and it was discontinued.”



The lock picking sequence used is quite cool and a lot of fun trying to conjure up the elusive opening sequence.  This original version measured 3.5" x 3.5" x 2.6".

Subsequently Jerry offered a slightly smaller version in 2011 version 2.9” x 2.9” x 2.2” .  As well as several different exotic wood varieties:

Tulipwood/Wenge/Maple

Cocobolo/Wenge/Maple

Walnut/Maple/Cardinal


The copy below has Jerry’s unique stamped marking of #10 with his initials and year in pencil.








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