Ladybug by Pelikan

This is Pelikan third iteration in what appears to be a line of self designed puzzles, the previous ones were ‘Turtles’ and ‘Snail’.  This one like the others is animal themed and really nicely crafted from Padauk (my latest stock of this wood is very bright similar to this copy) and Wenge.

I really enjoy simpler assembly puzzles and this one is right up my alley, so far all of these animal themed puzzles have really piqued my interest even though I’m now in full retirement. 

As before I also made a box to house this beauty!

My copy is #50 of 50

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“Pelikan have begun producing their own designs recently and are focussing on animals/insects. They are all absolutely gorgeous and have a real character to them. I classify them as “interlocking” puzzles but not burrs – I am not an expert, but I am sure that they count as Kumiki. The Ladybug is a good bit larger than the previous releases – it stands out vibrantly in the living room (where my collection seems to be expanding much to the annoyance of Mrs S). It is made from Wenge and an incredibly red Padauk. This puzzle is just plain cute! The last one, Snail, was slightly more complex to dismantle than this one but it is still fun. To make it more of a challenge, I immediately scrambled the pieces and made a pile before trying to reassemble. It is still not very difficult but did take me a few minutes to work out the order and how to interlock them properly. This is a must have just for its’ sheer beauty!”

The Box Frame is Roasted Birch with Holly Slipfeathers, the Bottom is Canarywood with Wenge Slipfeathers.  The Top is Canarywood & Tigerwood and Peruvian Walnut with Wenge Slipfeathers.

Turtles by Pelikan

I missed this release when it first appeared at Pelikan but thankfully a fellow collector was willing to part with his copy.  This diminutive puzzle is Jakub’s interpretation of a Turtle(s) in a Kumiki style offering.  I was so enthralled by this little guy(s) that I decided to make a little box to house it/them, lol.

My copy is #34 of 50

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“This one is very cute. Jakub decided that he wanted to turn his hand to puzzle design himself and created something delightful. Turtles reminds me of the Bison puzzle from Xmas 2021 – it is a sequentially interlocking puzzle created from Wenge and Acacia. The secret is to find the way to remove the first piece and then it will serially disassemble. In the end you are left with a bunch of rather interesting pieces and a genuine laugh out loud moment when you suddenly realise what the guys have done. When I showed Mrs S, even she was delighted with the end result. It is not a difficult puzzle but it is genuinely delightful.”

Box is Canarywood with Peruvian Walnut sleeve with Walnut top & bottom and Wenge slipfeathers.

Golden Pot - Yavuz Demirhan by Pelikan

I’ve had my eye on this cool packing puzzle by Yavuz ever since Pelikan had offered it up at their shop.  It’s not a difficult puzzle but the beautiful craftsmanship is quite mesmerizing!  This puzzle is definitely the coolest display of woodworking I’ve ever seen by Pelikan or anyone else for that matter.

Oddly enough it’s still available for purchase directly from Pelikan or Puzzlemaster.

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“When Yavuz designs something, I always pay attention. He is an amazing designer as well as a superb craftsman. The belief that there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow is a wonderful piece of old Irish folklore and it is quite surprising that a Turkish man living in Germany can get a pair of Czech craftsmen to make it but even without a hint of Ireland in the manufacture, this is a simply wonderful puzzle. It is made with an American Walnut pot, a Merbau, Purpleheart, Garapa and Maple rainbow and Grape pieces. Yavuz has used a subset of the Soma cube pieces (including 3 that are doubled up). The aim is to pack all of them into the pot so that the gold forms a level surface with the rainbow buried in it. This is made really challenging by the fact that there is only a 1 voxel clearance around and underneath the rainbow’s end making the insertion of several pieces quite challenging. I still struggle to assemble a soma cube and anything like this with a restricted entry is a huge challenge for me. Random trial and error didn’t work for the first couple of days and eventually I had to think©. It is actually the restricted entry that is the most important part. It made me stop and work out how I could get the awkward pieces inside – there is only one assembly but there are 2 ways the pieces can be put inside. A really difficult puzzle for me and will be beautiful on display in the puzzle room.”

Sensi-Box by Alfons Eyckmans

This is a very nice puzzle by Alfons, as you can see from his description it was a variation of Goh Pit Khiam’s ‘B-Box/Reactor’ (which was co-developed by Eric Fuller) it also features a smaller puzzle that can be nested inside of the larger puzzle box similar to Pit’s ‘Reactor’.

I must say I’ve never really quite got the gist of ‘Nary’ puzzles and after moving things around with this one I still can’t seem to grasp the pattern of moves?

It wasn’t until I attempted to disassemble the smaller ‘Sensi’ puzzle that I realized just how many moves there are to this smaller burr.  Burrtools shows a rather lengthy 56.3.1.2.2!

As Alfons makes a note of below the ‘Sensi Box’ can be taken apart in a shorter 8 move count of 8.2.1.1.1.2.2.1.1.4.1.1.1.1.2. however it can be set at a monstrous level move count of:

321.9.2.1.1.1.4.2.2.2.2.

Here’s Alfons description:

“25 Piece puzzle "Sensi-Box"

This is a variant of the B-box of Goh Pit Khiam.

This is two puzzles, to remove the first piece 321 moves, for the puzzle "Sensi" inside 56 moves for the first piece, the total moves of the two puzzles is 418.

You can also put the box puzzle together that it takes only 8 moves.”

Octopus 33 - Osanori Yamamoto (2014) by Pelikan

This very nice design by Osanori and is quite similar to his other clever design called ‘Waffle’ that coincidentally was uploaded to ‘Puzzle Will Be Played’ within days of each other.  This puzzle however has a much higher level move count of 33.6.6.8 with a rotation required.

I previously blogged about Osanori’s Waffle.

Here’s a description from Kevin’s blog:

“Osanori Yamamoto and Pelikan have made yet another sequential movement puzzle in which 4 pieces are held in a maze and can slide and move in very restricted ways - the aim is to remove those pieces by carefully navigating the maze and orienting the pieces in such a way that they can be slid out through the single hole that will allow it. The last one of this type was the Waffle which I really struggled with. The Octopus 33 is made with a Bubinga and Wenge frame with 4 identical yellow Garapa L-shaped pieces providing a lovely contrast in colours. This seems to be probably the most restricted of this type of puzzle that Osanori-San has created. It’s quite obvious early on where the exit point is and obviously rotations will be required to get all the pieces out of the frame. However, the obvious moves that you want to do are apparently impossible. The 8 “tentacles” of the Octopus make the movements that you want to do really quite hard to achieve. 

It’s a nice series of discoveries to find how to manoeuvre the pieces and the Aha! moment has a very unexpected aspect to it which actually made my jaw drop when I realised what Osanori-san had managed to design.”

Super Nova - Co-designed by Jack Krijnen & Alfons Eyckmans

I previously had a 3D printed copy but now managed to acquire a wood version made by Alfons.

This colossal puzzle is the culmination of both Jack and Alfons attempting to find the highest level 18 piece burr.

Here’s a blog post by Saul Symonds that describes the design process that Jack and Alfons used to come up with this marvel:

Six Questions with Alfons Eyckmans on “Supernova”

“Supernova is a fitting first puzzle for this blog since it is more like a maze than any other burr puzzle I have ever attempted. In navigating its long, complex and elaborate opening sequence you come across dead ends and misdirections until discovering the right path. A total of 166 moves are required before the first piece can be removed, currently the record for an 18-piece burr.
I have read or heard people say that Supernova is for experienced puzzlers only. While this is not an incorrect statement, I would rather say it is for serious puzzlers – moreover, for patient ones. There is no quick route through this puzzle. Finding the correct disassembly sequence takes time, concentration, memory and stamina.

Alfons first started selling his puzzles in 2011 after posting two copies of the 16-piece burr Dirty Dozen on eBay. They were bought by Goetz Schwandtner and Aaron Davila, the latter who asked Alfons for more puzzles with word of mouth doing the rest. Alfons says that building puzzles is his second hobby after his first love of fishing on the beach.

Now retired, he worked for 40 years as a mechanic on engines, mostly boat and ship engines but also generators, compressors and trains in work that took him as far as Indonesia from his native Belgium.

In September 2013, Alfons took time out from fishing and building puzzles to answer some questions via email on his latest conquest of complexity, the Supernova burr.

Saul Symonds: You mentioned that Supernova is the last (for the moment) in a series of puzzles that began with Condor. Why stop now? Do you feel that you can not get higher than 166 moves?

Alfons Eyckmans: I stop now because I’ve found a higher level and that is very difficult to do. I think that it is possible to increase the level but that takes a lot of time and for the moment I will take a break in searching for a higher level.

SS: Apart from increasing the level of the burr, are there other goals you had with this series?

AE: Yes, to find a high level burr that is notchable.

SS: Can you tell me about your choice of names for this series of puzzles. They all involve some kind of celestial beings: birds, both mythical and real (Condor, Garudaand Phoenix), weather and ballon satellites (Tiros and Echo-1) and finally an exploding star (Supernova).

AE: When I designed Condor, the highest level of an 18-piece puzzle was 50, so I thought which bird is flying highest, I thought it was the condor. When I designed Phoenix I took the puzzle Condor’s Peeper and I took away all the voxels that were not required in that puzzle, almost starting from scratch. When I started to build the puzzle again, suddenly the level 109 appeared and like the phoenix it rose out of the ashes.

Tiros is one of the highest man made objects in the sky, Echo-1 is a mirror version of Tiros and the name is given by Aaron Davilla. When I discovered the puzzle SupernovaI thought this is a super puzzle, the next thing that came to me was supernova.

SS: Can you tell me about the race between you and Jack Krijnen to find an 18-piece burr with the highest number of opening moves. How did it start? It seems that with Supernova you are the winner of the race.

AE: It seems that for the moment I’m the winner. The race started with the puzzle Condor. Jack has written a programme that he named Puzzle Growing, that he leaves running day and night, and so he discovered Condor’s Peeper. After the puzzle Phoenix he did the same and discovered Phoenix 111. After a year of searching I found the puzzle Phoenix Cabracan. Jack used Puzzle Growing again, but I was a little faster than his programme and found Tiros level 150. A few days later Jack found the three Burrly Sane with levels 138, 148, and 152. After two years of searching, I found the puzzle The Barones level 152. Because this was not the same pieces as the puzzle Burrly Sane for Extreme Puzzlers, also level 152, Jack used The Barones in his Puzzle Growing programme and found the puzzle Excelsior level 156. I told him that when he publishes the puzzle he also has to mention my name because he used my puzzle to find a higher level. So we made an agreement to mention both names with these puzzles. After the Excelsior I start searching again and I found before Jack the Supernova and I used Jack’s name when I published the puzzle.

SS: How do you go about increasing the number of opening moves on a burr?

AE: For Increasing the level of a puzzle I use only Burr Tools and my brain. (Note: when I pressed Alfons for more information on how he increases the level of a burr all he would say is with insight and luck!)

SS: What is it about high-level burrs that you find so fascinating?

AE: It gives me a kick to create something that is difficult to solve.”

Psycho Disks - Eric Fuller by Cubicdissection

I was fortunate to have picked this very cool puzzle in a swap and highly recommend you grab one from Cubicdissection.

As you can see by his description below Eric was always coming up with clever design changes to existing puzzle designs that intrigued him.  This puzzle is a real head scratcher as you try to navigate your way through the solve!

Here’s Eric’s description from cubicdissection:

“Psycho Disks was inspired by Phil Wigfield's excellent "Spinning Tumblers" design. Eric received a copy for his collection and thought the concept could be significantly expanded. With Phil's approval, he set to work. The result is a combination Take-Apart and Fidget Toy puzzle that's wickedly difficult to solve!

To open Psycho Disks, you must decipher the internal maze and successfully navigate to the end. Once opened, the solver can rearrange the disks to create different challenges! The included quick reset tool minimizes downtime for maximal solve-time.”

I decided to make a Memory Box (to honour Eric RIP) from Thuya Burl with Padauk Slipfeathers and Tigerwood Sleeve, Top & Bottom are Canarywood.

You can still purchase Phil’s original design at his Etsy shop Metal Puzzles UK.