Knobby Burr From Wood Wonders

I bought 4 puzzles from Brian Menold at Wood Wonders. I was absolutely delighted by his version of Stewart Coffin's Involute puzzle in Tiger wood. Now I am going to concentrate on a less well known one. First up is the Knobby burr.

Knobby Burr

This was designed by Dic Sonneveld. Brian's description is as follows:
"This not only requires the brain power to reassemble it, but also a good deal of manual dexterity. Large hands help too!"

He is not kidding about the large hands. It is a really big puzzle at 4" cubed. It was available in a number of different woods and I chose one in Walnut, Padauk and Cherry. In this combination it is very striking (if not beautiful!) It doesn't really need a lot of brain power to disassemble as there are actually a very limited number of possible moves. My version is very tight which did make it quite hard to find the second move.

Knobby Burr 1st Move

Knobby Burr 2 Pieces

It eventually comes apart into 6 identical pieces (apart from the colours). One of my pieces has been glued ever so slightly out of alignment and separating that piece off requires a considerable amount of force. I may well take a fine file to it to loosen it. I am sure this is a one-off for my puzzle.

Knobby Burr 6 pieces

I deliberately mixed up the pieces and left them for a while before attempting re-assembly because I did not think it would be that difficult to do. I was wrong! I actually spent about 20-30 minutes on this before I worked out the orientation to get it back together. This was made harder by the tight piece but primarily was because it is actually a moderately difficult puzzle.