Waltz - Osanori Yamamoto by Pelikan

I added this cool 2 piece apparent cube design by Osanori to my recent order from Pelikan. It’s wonderfully crafted using Wenge for the restricted opening Box and Zebrawood/ Maple pieces.

Curiously enough like Kevin I was sure this wouldn’t be such a difficult task so grabbed a copy expecting to breeze through the solve but then decided to pull off a move that I instantly regretted and feared that I had bricked my copy!  Thankfully I was able to reverse that move and start over and soon found a ‘shortcut’ to the solve that satisfies the goal in a couple of moves, of course that’s not the objective that Osanori had in mind so the search goes on…lol

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“Another fabulous design by Osanori Yamamoto, stunningly visualised in Wenge, Maple and Zebrano. This one is almost as if Osanori-san has seen the wonderful 3 piece challenge by Alexander Magyarics and said to himself: “I can beat that”! It is another packing puzzle with a limited entrance and a requirement to block the entry once solved….but this time, just to make it even more interesting, there are only 2 pieces to be packed in the 3x3x4 cavity and filled the 2×2 entrance. Not only are there only 2 pieces but it quickly becomes apparent that one of them HAS to be the entry blocker. I was rather over-confident with this one and thought it would be relatively easy. Oh no! it wasn’t easy for me! I spent a day failing completely and did wonder whether I was going about it wrong – I looked at the name and thought about the cardinal feature of the Waltz and then decided to explore rotational moves. I was successful and managed to assemble the puzzle with the entry filled but something didn’t feel right. This was especially true when I found that I couldn’t take it apart! Aargh! In a bit of a panic, with a fair bit of dexterity and swearing, I was able to unravel what I had done and decided to try again the more conventional way. But this time I was determined to think© about the name as well but not be so stupid. The cardinal feature of a Waltz is rotation with minimal rise and fall. The 18 moves to achieve the assembly are a masterpiece. The gauntlet has been thrown down and is there anyone who can design something more simple with more beautiful moves than this? Over to you Alexander-san!”