Rich Has Me Beat......TWICE!

SV burr by Richard Williams

This will be a very short post because I am rubbish at puzzles! I don't really go anywhere for puzzling and hence no fabulous IPP stories and I work rather more than is good for me. Puzzles are supposed to be a way to relax but I haven't found that to be the case recently! Sigh!

At the last MPP that I managed to get to (way back at the beginning of September) I watched everyone try and succeed in solving the SV Burr by the genius that is Richard Williams. I think SV stands for sequential voxel? People seemed to really enjoy it and even Allard who is even worse at puzzles than me (especially burrs) managed to solve it. I couldn't allow myself to pass on the chance and slipped Rich some PayPal and brought this one and one other (see below) home in the hope that I would have a nice solve and something positive to write about on the blog (as well as have a bit of fun). Oh boy! I was very wrong! I am not sure I have had any fun yet. and can only write about failure!

This puzzle has been 3D printed by Rich and includes at least one metal piece (so far that I have found inside) and the aim is to dismantle it and presumably understand why it has been so named. I couldn't resist starting work on this pretty much as soon as I thought Mrs S might have forgotten that I might have acquired a few new toys. It's a good tactile size and heavier than you would expect for a plastic puzzle. It was available in several colour arrangements and I picked this black and blue version in the vague hope that the colour scheme might help with reassembly. As with all burrs, I started with pushing and pulling all the sticks in all the directions and got nowhere. This is going to be a theme for me this week. After a good hour or so of failure it was put down and I had to start cooking. Time to start again later and I had a little breakthrough. Something moved and I had a tool. There was no obvious place it should go until I had a little think© and use the tool in a counterintuitive way. All of a sudden I had some burr movement - yes, something slid and I got my hopes up.....Stupid boy!

Having slid part of the burr open, I was suddenly presented with a hole. It looked like a perfect place to put the tool that I had used to get that far. Maybe putting it inside and sliding it shut would allow me to manoeuvre it and use it inside as a tool as well. I placed the tool and slid it shut. Yay! Progress! Except, I now couldn't open the burr anymore. OMG! What had I done? After a few hours of failure I checked in with Rich and he confirmed that I was an eejit! There should be no reason that I shouldn't be able to get it back out again using gravity but despite that reassurance, I spent 7 days shaking the thing whilst getting chest pain and swearing at this bloody crazy hobby of mine. Mrs S had further evidence that I had lost my mind. Eventually, a whole week later, I managed to get it open again and the tool out. Phew! I then found that I couldn't return it to the beginning. I have a funny feeling I have stripped part of the plastic during my too and fro. Hopefully, I can show it to Rich at the next MPP and he can confirm whether or not I have buggered it up.

Since then, I have spent some time for the last 7 weeks not even finding the next step! Sigh! I am rubbish at puzzles. During that time I have tried other puzzles:

Dovetail Bar 2 also by Richard Williams

I have written about the first Dovetail Bar and loved it. The solve was very logical and fun with a really nice hidden mechanism. When Rich showed off the next one in the series, I couldn't resist sending more PayPal and having another wonderful puzzle to play with and write about. Maybe this lulled me into a false sense of security? 

This version now has 2 dovetails. One of them is very similar to the previous puzzle being the length of the bar and a second one on the opposite edge at 90º. There is a single screw in one side which unscrews easily. The lengthwise dovetail can slide about a centimetre depending on the orientation of the puzzle. Different positions allows it to slide in different directions. Having the screw in or out makes no apparent difference and no matter what I have tried screwing it back in doesn't appear to catch anything as it does in the first version.

There is a huge temptation to tap it, bang it, spin it and submerge it in gin (the instructions don't warn not to do that). I have been carrying this with me for the best part of 2 months and fiddling at every opportunity.The trouble is, I look ridiculous playing with a small piece of plastic that appears to never change and also after a few hours of play, I have realised that doing the same thing hundreds and hundreds of times is not very helpful. I actually can't think of anything else to try if I am not allowed to tap or spin! I have failed on both of Rich's puzzles where almost everyone else has succeeded. I will take them back to the next MPP to check that I haven't actually damaged them.

Maybe it is time for me to stop this puzzle hobby? Sigh!

I did, however, manage to finally solve the Sliding Doors puzzle from last week. It did take me almost a week to get it but at least I solved something. I had even more fun putting it into Burrtools - it was quite a challenge to model.