Time and Strijbos has Defeated me! What About Aaron?

The Revenge Lock aka the Wanderer

It's time to produce my own write up of Wil Strijbos' latest marvel, "Revenge Lock" aka "the Wanderer" which I introduced and described a couple of weekends ago here. Allard has already published a fantabulous review of this brilliant puzzle here so go and read it first. You can then marvel at how good a puzzler he really is....because he managed to solve the damn thing despite being lead astray initially by the puzzle pusher's prototype. I, on the other hand, have had the benefit of more time with it as well as never having seen a prototype and have still failed to complete the puzzle!

No clues on the back

So what is my excuse? Firstly I have to emphasize (as I often do) that despite what I do for a living (you would imagine that being a doctor I would need to be clever), I am really not terribly bright (Mrs S says I am often really quite dense) and my wonderful puzzle pusher has had me beaten for a good 2 weeks! My second excuse is time!!!! For some reason I have been working my arse off (for you Americans that would be ass). I never seem to get a break at work (even for lunch) and the caseload I carry is too complex to take my eye off the ball/patient/monitors/ventilator for even a moment and think about a puzzle! I am sure that many potential patients are greatly relieved to read that!! My days have been very long and in order to preserve my health, when I get home in the evenings I do have to spend some time with "she who frightens me to death" lest she follow her full name through to its' final conclusion. With last weekend having been her birthday there was no puzzling allowed and yesterday was yet another day to write the on call rotas for my department - after 8½ hours on the damned rotas, puzzling proved impossible. Yes yes yes, I can hear you now....that is a feeble excuse! I agree which is why I put my lack of brain power first!

It's Good to Play With Some More Basic Puzzles

Und plus Kugel

Recently I have been playing with, and failing to solve, some incredibly complex puzzles including Brian Young's SMS Phone, Johan's Moluscub and Jakub's Superhero burrs. So I was really delighted when I received an emailed newsletter from my favourite puzzle pusher, Wil Strijbos, with details of a whole bunch of disentanglement puzzles that had been produced by Jean Claude Constantin just in time for people attending this years' IPP in Japan. This set of beautifully made wire (and string) puzzles looked like a trip back to some very basic disentanglements with very simple shapes intertwined. Looking at these I felt that I was going back to some nice "BASIC" (Blush) puzzles for a little bit of light relief. I knew they wouldn't be really easy because Wil had said this about them:

Most of them are very challenging and hard to solve. But you can "Try when you fly" on your way back home ;)

There were 10 new designs available and I had already obtained 2 of them. One was the U-Twins which had been inside Allard's Loopy box exchange last year. I wrote about that one at the beginning of this month when I called it Allard's Evil Puzzle. From my experience with this puzzle alone, I knew that I just HAD to have the rest in the series! The U-Twins/Evil puzzle had taken me months and months to solve and even then I had needed a clue from Joe at the last MPP. If that was anything to go by then the other new ones were essential buys!

I placed my order last Sunday for all the ones I didn't have already and was hoping that they'd arrive whilst I was home on a Thursday afternoon and "she" was out. They did arrive on Thursday but unfortunately whilst I was out at work.

U-Loop - Derek's current nemesis

Mrs S was not impressed when she answered the door to our postie and a nice box arrived with Wil's absolutely unmistakeable packing tape covering every edge and corner. She was even less impressed when she saw the potential jingliness that I unpacked. She gave me a laser burning stare and threatened me with a Whack! Ouch! if I so much as thought about making a noise during our TV time that evening. Gulp! I promised to be quiet and she covered up the laser. Even with my previous experience I was reminded how difficult these could be by my good friend Derek who had been given a copy of the U-Loop which he had managed to take apart some weeks before but to date had singularly failed to reassemble - he was relying on me to tell him how to put it back together! If a genius of that calibre had struggled then I was going to be in trouble (after all, I'm just a newbie at these puzzles!) We then proceeded to have a discussion about genius and newbieness and I went to bed later that evening chuckling - it is really good to have puzzle friends around the world who can challenge each other and generally take the piss! Derek and I do that a lot!

Pachinko Box - A Beautiful Discovery

Pachinko Box

I'm sure you all knew this was coming - after all Allard published his review a few days ago! We have known about the Pachinko box for several years as Wil Strijbos has discussed it with quite a number of members of the puzzling fraternity for quite some time. It always appeared to be not quite ready and many of us thought it was a myth only inside the devious man's head. However at the King's day puzzle party that Wil hosted this year an almost ready prototype was shown around and the buzz amongst us got louder and Wil even sent out an email newsletter telling us it was about to be released. Many of us held our breaths and just a few weeks ago that fateful email came out and many of us drew in a VERY sharp intake of breath - this was a very costly puzzle! Wil went on to explain that the cost to himself to produce it was significantly higher than expected and in order not to make a loss, he had to charge such a high amount.

Now I know that Wil is not one to fleece us, over the years he has shown me that he deals very fairly with me and with others and I will always take him at his word. Puzzlers are a trusting bunch (except when it comes to solutions) and that trust is earned through years of treating people well. So after my initial gulp and sly look at Mrs S to make sure that she had not seen my gasp, I sent off the email placing my order - the decision must have taken me at least 60 seconds! After all I am Wil's official troubleshooter so I need to have a copy of all his significant puzzles to allow me to troubleshoot. I reckon I must get 1-5 emails a week asking for information or help and without playing with them I couldn't provide that help.

Streetwise Puzzles Inc.
General Manager	: Iwahiro
Product Manager	: Tom
Approbation Manager	: Louis
Trouble Shooter	: Kevin
Logarithmic Analyser	: Goetz/Nick
Jointly Responsible	: William

That is my justification to Mrs S and I am sticking with it. Whack! Ouch! I'm glad you're so understanding dear!

Fourfold and a brief MPP tale

Fourfold

Today will need to be a fairly quick blog post. I spent all day yesterday down in Birmingham at the 21st Midlands Puzzle Party and so really owe the present Mrs S some of my time this weekend. She has had me doing chores and the weekly shopping but has generously allowed me to write my weekend post as long as I don't spend too long. I don't want to risk a Whack! Ouch! or worse so this is a quickie (but still a good puzzle to be reviewed).

The puzzle pictured above is the Fourfold puzzle which I bought from Tomas Linden's Sloyd puzzle store. It was designed by Ad van der Schagt who seems to have been reasonably prolific in several puzzle areas. Puzzle Master have some of his burr designs and Sloyd have quite a few disentanglement designs. I picked this because it looked horrific with a very long string intertwining everything and because it was rated as 4 stars out of a possible 4 in difficulty by the producers - Eureka puzzles. I have had quite a few new disentanglement puzzles recently and have singularly failed to solve most of them. Either I have lost my mojo or I have picked out some seriously tough puzzles to work on! I took the Fourfold to work one day in the hope of finding a moment to have a play. Several of my colleagues were fairly horrified at the complexity of it and I expressed the fear that a very large knot may ensue which I might not be able to undo. But these challenges are sent to try us!

The Ball and Chain is Going to Cause Much Pain!

Wil's exchange puzzle

They say that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" and it is true....but ONLY up to a point. The current "ball and chain" skipped up to Edinburgh to visit her parents and left me alone for a few days. Now normally this would be an excuse for me to veg out, play with my toys, drink loads and loads of red wine and gin (No! Not mixed together!) and generally be a slob. But unfortunately, I had had so much to drink the previous weekend at the gin festival and then the following few days as an organiser and attendee at a major medical conference (VASGBI annual scientific meeting) seemed to include a fair bit of booze too. So when Mrs S left, I decided I had better give my liver a rest - I really don't want to have to carry it around in a wheelbarrow! Luckily for me I had a series of deliveries whilst she was away that involved her least favourite of my toys - yes there were a good few disentanglement puzzles and you know that if I jingle I automatically earn a Whack! Ouch! Or a burn from the laser burning stare! So last night whilst sitting companionably together watching the last night of the proms on TV I started to make some annoying noises and the fondness that had accumulated immediately vanished and pain ensued! Sigh!

Bastard evil puzzle!

I would like to say that the "wife induced" pain is the main reason that I have singularly failed to solve Allard's evil puzzle but I can't really blame "her" entirely! I have sort of worked out what is required and my friend George Bell has confirmed my thoughts (remember to go and buy a copy of his exchange puzzle here if you missed it last week) but for the life of me I cannot seem to get the pieces into the correct position to allow the first critical move to be done! My eternal shame is compounded even more having just had an email from Shane showing his copy in pieces - he confesses that he is rubbish at these and so I (who am supposed to be moderately experienced) am feeling rather ashamed of myself! I will continue to blame Mrs S so as not to destroy my self image. Whack! Ouch! Ooh! Sorry dear!

At the top of this post is a recent purchase from the latest update courtesy of Wil Strijbos. As soon as I saw it I knew that I just HAD to have a copy. First it is a disentanglement, second it has multiple challenges and third it is just beautifully made and has a reset mechanism (which is just as well). It has the look of a Jean Claude Constantin production and was given away at the Ottawa IPP by Wil as his exchange puzzle. It comes with a leaflet displaying 10 possible challenges and says that more are possible:

Drool! Lots of puzzles in one!

The reset mechanism is by pulling the pin out of one of the balls and releasing the string. It arrived in the position for challenge 7 (which is the Ottawa exchange puzzle) but I decided to start at an easier one - namely number 1 (the top photo is actually that configuration). I have spent 3 days playing with this damned thing and have managed to dismantle it twice and still have absolutely no clue how I managed it! I have had to use the reset mechanism to put it back to the beginning each time because having taken it apart I couldn't even reverse the process. The actual shapes of the pieces are not complex and the string is not long so getting knotted up is not a problem. This puzzle should not be as hard as it is but I have found that (like Allard's puzzle) the crucial moves that I want to take are blocked by the narrowness of the metal U. Last night having received pain for Allard's puzzle, I quickly moved onto this one and even with wooden parts it still was noisy enough to earn me another Whack! Ouch! Lord! I'm covered in bruises! Can you imagine what state I will be in by the time I have solved Allard's puzzle AND all 10 challenges? I have to say that this is an absolutely BRILLIANT design - if disentanglements are your thing then get one NOW!

Wil causes pleasure.....and MUCH pain!

The butterfly lock box comes in a butterfly box

I apologise to those of you who expect my posts at the same time every Sunday afternoon! I know that I am a bit late - I had written a lot of the post yesterday but didn't have time to finish it. Unfortunately I have spent most of the day (from 7:30am) in Sheffield's emergency operating theatres and have only just got home to finish it off. I guess that since my work finances this expensive habit of mine, I really shouldn't complain too much!

It has been a very long time since we had any sort of update from Wil Strijbos. There have been intermittent reports of "it's coming" or nearly there but we have this problem to be sorted. Then suddenly out of the blue we got a couple of newsletters each mentioning just 1 new puzzle.

Beautiful and heavy metal inside! A pleasure to look at! 

The first newsletter described the Butterfly lock box which was quickly also named by Wil as the Pleasure and pain  puzzle. I have to say that the initial pleasure of seeing an update from Wil and a delighted read through the instructions and the history was followed by an "OMG!" of pain. In fact the OMG! was loud enough to make the present Mrs S look up from the Mulberry handbag website to look at what was wrong! Believe me, almost nothing can tear Mrs S away from handbags unless it is shoes..... or diamonds!! Whack!! Ouch! Sorry dear! This puzzle is eye watering in price. It is a staggering €380 and I know that you are all immediately wondering whether it is worth it? Well bear with me a little while and I will try and come to a conclusion. The first thing to be aware of is that Wil first had the idea for it in September 2013 and sketched the idea down. It has taken nearly 2 years to bring it to fruition, multiple trips to China where it is fabricated and several iterations to get it working fully. I am sure that the development cost for this will have been huge. The other thing to consider is that it is milled from a block of Aluminium, some of which is anodised and engraved, there's also some steel components and also a particularly large and handsome padlock. This monstrous thing weighs in at a mighty 1.5Kg and is huge at 133 x 90 x 47mm. It should be borne in mind that this is a limited production run of 100 pieces which will be numbered: 00/99 - 99/99 (mine is number 21/99 which matches with the number of my Angel box).

There are the usual hints and instructions that went with the puzzle:

• No force (in fact Wil deliberately stated "when you feel friction, stop!")
• No Banging
• No Rotational Moves
• No external tools allowed
• No Force Required at all! (This was actually stated twice!!!)
• Just turn things over, slide things back and forth carefully, change positions etc.

Also:

"Don't bother asking me for hints or solutions."

The aim is to move from the start position with the little plastic LOCK tube upside down on the pin to the same position as everything again but with the LOCK tube the correct way up.

Start position

Finish position

He also was very careful in his newsletter to say this:

"...and remember there is No Hurry, please take your time, and be sure you don't forget anything at the end... or pain awaits"

I would say that this statement is VERY important! Don't go rushing in headlong! Understand the puzzle as you go or it will end in pain!

The important thing with this is the stipulation that EVERYTHING should be in the same positions as they were with ONLY the LOCK tube changed. This particular distinction is very important. Then of course, the next thing to do is return it all right back to the start position. The start position is so special that Wil gave an explanation of how to know when you have got there. Not only should it look identical externally BUT it should also have the mechanism reset to the beginning internally and the only way that you will know when you have it correctly positioned is when the sliding green 'lid' can only be moved a single millimeter downwards:

The lid can only move 1mm in the start AND end position

As far as I know Shane was pretty much the first to receive this puzzle and he sent me a delighted email and set to work. I got a running commentary from him and a howl of delight when he fathomed it out. He was pretty skilled - he only experienced a small amount of the pain! You should be aware that if you follow the rules and work on the puzzle there are varying degrees of pain that can be experienced. Let me tell you that I am aware of some puzzlers who managed the entire puzzle with no pain at all and others like me who experienced the full gamut of pain! Of course during the experience it is possible to feel quite a lot of pleasure too. During my solve I definitely started out with pleasure! but it didn't last very long.

The most important thing to realise is that when you have experienced your pain and informed Wil about it then that causes him to experience much pleasure! Wil experiences the pleasure of receiving your cash, the pleasure of your enjoying his puzzle but even more the pleasure of your pain!

What are my thoughts about this? I was shocked at the price but as I said last week it is not expensive it is just rather a lot of money. The sequence of moves required initially appears pretty easy but believe me, it is not! To get it right and not experience pain requires a serious understanding of the complexity of the mechanism. You could argue that the more pain that you experience, the better value for money! But maybe that is just me trying to justify my masochism? I have now fully understood the puzzle and can achieve the required positions in about a minute - I love it and have solved it repeatedly since getting it. The repeatability is not in the solve it is in the pleasure of the very clever mechanism. Should you buy one? That is hard to say - if you can afford it without getting into financial trouble then it is a great addition to your collection and will maintain it's value over time but it is not for beginners to this mad addiction of ours!

---

The Ying Yang 69 Puzzle

Ying Yang 69

The other puzzle which was in Wil's second newsletter was the Ying Yang 69 puzzle. As soon as I saw the picture in the email I recalled how I had played with the prototype at the MPP last year just before the IPP. It had been designed by Ayi Liu and my friend Otis Cheng (a fellow admin of the Puzzle Photography Facebook group) had brought Ayi's prototype over for people to play with. I had tried to solve it for about 30-45 minutes and had singularly failed.

I thought nothing more of it until it appeared in Wil's newsletter. It transpired that Wil had seen it and decided that it was worth developing. He took it from the prototype phase and arranged for it to be mass produced. The final version is absolutely stunning - it is 60mm in diameter, 26mm in height and weighs 200g. The puzzle is made from aluminium (some pieces of which are anodised) and has steel components too. The aim is to disassemble it into (at least) the 4 component sections and then of course to reassemble it. It also is not a cheap puzzle at €110 but is absolutely beautifully made.

When mine arrived, I was struck by the gorgeous packaging:

It arrived in a lovely container

The first thing I did was take it to work - I was doing a vascular surgery and interventional radiology operating list the following Monday and I have often managed to sweet-talk the radiographers into taking a quick pic of my new metal goodies. I convinced the superintendent radiographer that she wanted to see the inside of my new toy and duly got a plane film in both axes. I was very careful not to actually look at the images as I didn't want to get any hints for solving the puzzle. I then put it away for a day to ensure that I definitely didn't remember anything.

The following day I took it out and began to explore - I did remember a bit of my findings from the MPP and so managed the first move fairly quickly. After that I was quite stuck for a while. Nothing else seemed to work until by pure accident something changed. At this point I jumped and reset it by accident. Stupid boy!!! Back to square one and I only managed to repeat my feat after another 20 minutes! It took a few new moves and I managed to separate the puzzle into 4 segments. It actually comes apart even further than that but I don't want to give too much away by showing you all of the pieces.

Eventually you will get this:

4 separate pieces - it does go further but would give too much away

I absolutely love this puzzle - it is a great worry bead and is a very slick idea. My Xray would not really give too much away but it's definitely better to solve it before seeing the Xray.

All in all, I have spent a fortune recently and am delighted with Wil's latest offerings - I am sure you will be too if you can afford the high starting price!

Thanks Wil - I am already looking forward to the next newsletter but do hope for the sake of my bank balance that you do actually wait a while.

An Eggcellent puzzle - Much more complex than I first thought!

The Strijbos egg - it's the one on the left!!

Last week I warned the world that Wil Strijbos was going to be releasing a very special new puzzle on an unsuspecting world and oh boy was I right! The first ones have been released and I absolutely MUST write a blog post about it!

People seem to think that working as the "trouble shooter" for Streetwise puzzles (Wil's brand name), I get lots of advance notice of puzzles coming up or even get to play with them early. I'm afraid that is far from true - I hear about them through the same newsletters as everyone else and have to rattle in my order as quickly as possible to avoid losing out! My rôle has simply been to receive emails forwarded from Wil that are asking for help with possibly broken puzzles or sometimes helping people who just cannot solve something.

We have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Egg for a year now, since Wil sent out tantalising photos of the pieces. Everyone had hoped (including Wil) that it would be ready for Easter this year and when Newsletters A-E came out in May after the Easter holiday, we had almost given up hope. But late at night (does that man ever sleep?) an email was sent out that suddenly released on the unsuspecting world the news that "The Egg" was now available. Most of the UK was asleep (including me) and I actually didn't see anything in my usual morning scan of my emails at 6am. Whilst eating breakfast I received an email from my very good friend Shane (famous for The Block and The Circle). Shane and I communicate very frequently about life, families and puzzles and it is always a delight to read his emails - I also hope for news of the upcoming Parallelogram. I opened his email at 06:30 and was horrified to read that Wil's latest newsletter did not appear to have come to me! Quickly rummaging through my Spam folders I was disgusted to see that Google had indiscriminately placed Wil's latest email there! I read through the blurb, gulped very loudly at the price-tag and promptly sent an email hoping that there would be some left. I immediately set up a Gmail rule to ensure his messages are tagged as high priority and then also set up an "If This Then That" (IFTTT) rule to ensure that if ANYTHING came from Wil I would also receive a text message informing me of it asap - do you think this might be the sign of OCD?^* Later on I paid a sum of money to Wil that Mrs S still is not aware of and I don't plan to let her know any time soon! I received my tracking number a day or so later.

^*Let me assure you that my OCD is actually CDO - it is VERY important to put the letters in the correct order!!

In the Newsletter we were provided with the following information:

After 3 prototypes I managed to get ready the EGG in time, at least
before Easter 2015. Still a lot of work to do, to check all the Egg’s
from the inside. I anyway from the outside they all look wonderful and
if you can not solve the EGG, who cares about the inside?
                Mmmmmmm, probably just me :)
 

James Dalgety's Egg

          History of the EGG:

See the picture I took when I visited James Dalgety in December 2011.
The date on the bottom from the EGG says 1986, so it is now at least
28 years ago that I created this EGG. This first creation will be also
in the collection from Jerry Slocum, Dick Hess and in some other col-
lections. Maximum production at that time was less then ten. In the
90tys last century a company tried to produce the EGG. The result at
the end was a broken EGG, too difficult to produce they told me. So
when I saw my EGG again in the collection from James Dalgety I decided
to give it a try.

With this sort of tantalising information, how could I possibly resist?

Wire and String from Mr Strijbos

My last Strijbos delivery

You all know about my habit! I have a man who keeps tempting me away from my money! Yes, Mr Strijbos, that would be you! Recently the update that came out had a few nice bits of metal loveliness and, of course, I had to add that to my collection! The 4 piece jigsaw has been quite a hit at work and the Heart in heart puzzle was a big hit with my wife! Who knows whether I will ever get that one back.

Wil knows about my love of disentanglements and is aware that I seem to have become a bit of an expert - I still feel like a beginner but I do appear to have solved quite a lot of them now and the guys at the Midlands Puzzle Parties often give me new ones to try. Wil finds quite a few new ones during his travels and brings a few really good ones back for us to buy. One of the best I have ever tried was the 2 ring teddy which has stumped many many people - both newbies and experienced puzzlers. It was so good that it has made TWO appearances on this blog - here and here.

Four Deliveries in one week! Is that bad?

It will be dry bread and water only after buying these!

I'm sorry that this is late - unfortunately I had to work today and not only did it interfere with my puzzling, it also delayed me writing this blog post! Dreadful! Only another 19 years to retirement - sigh!!!

I think it was in November that two of the great puzzle collectors in Europe (Goetz Schwandtner and Michel van Ipenburg) both posted news of a few new Jean-Claude Constantin N-ary puzzles about to come up for sale. When I say a few, this is a small understatement! There were 6!! And they all looked beautiful - very finely detailed and very unusual shapes instead of the more usual linear ones I have seen so far. Well you know by now how addicted to this particular group I am and I immediately asked my puzzle pusher, Wil Strijbos, whether he was getting them in stock! Very soon afterwards his news letter arrived with all of them available and maybe one or two other goodies too!

After a short gulp at the a sheer cost, I decided that Xmas was coming and Mrs S was going to be getting them for me for my Xmas present! What I hadn't realised was that Mrs S had already bought herself several pairs of shoes and boots for her Xmas present and was eagerly awaiting the Mulberry sale for handbags! I'm afraid that it will be dry bread and water for the next few months to pay for it all - I will of course, still be buying puzzles but not food - I must get my priorities right!!

Shortly after my very fast reply to the Newsletter, Wil also mentioned some extras that he had available, the Cast Twist came into stock, 2 more of his fabulous bolts also sort of got added to the list. Poor Mrs S didn't know quite how extensive the order was! But it was on a "need to know basis" and she really didn't for her own good!! Now Wil was hoping to get them out before Xmas but with all of his travelling and issues with stock it just never happened. I had plenty of other toys to occupy me and just waited. This week they arrived - Mrs S was very surprised at the size of the box and even more surprised at how much was inside (the extra was a replacement for the Perrier bottle #2 which had been broken in the mail). These N-ary puzzles will be reviewed in the future.

I freed my angel and I need her help!

Help me! I'm trapped in this prison.

There's a man out there in puzzle world and he's a verrrry bad man! His name is Strijbos, Wil Strijbos! You all know of him as my puzzle pusher! He is the facilitator, the enabler of my addiction and I love him for it! He also is the kind of man who would take a cute little angel and lock her tightly in a metal prison and then leave it to his unfortunate customers to try and work out how to free her!

I look forward to meeting Wil at the Midlands puzzle parties that he occasionally attends and unfortunately I missed out on meeting him at the recent Dutch Cube day! Most of all, however, I love it when he sends me his emails! Every 2-4 months a note drops into my Inbox telling me of his upcoming designs and what he has newly available - and he knows full well that I cannot resist his wares! In fact an email arrived this weekend and he has separated me from yet another large chunk of my money!

Back at the end of August one of these emails arrived with news of something we all knew he had been working on for a considerable time. He finally had it finished and was ready to take orders for the first 27 that were available. We all read with great eagerness about it and all of us then took a huge GULP! when we saw that it was to be €390 plus P&P. But did this faze us at all? Heck no! Within 5 minutes I had responded with a resounding YES and apparently within a few hours another 26 suckers ahem puzzlers had also signed up and Wil had a waiting list of another 22 within days! This shows how good a pusher he really is! There will only ever be 99 of these which you might say will make them an investment, but a few of us discussed the likelihood of this being something that will make a profit in the future and the consensus is that it is not likely at this price to be something that will appreciate in value much! So therefore you can conclude that this is a puzzle for the truly addicted or as I like to put it - "The Connoisseur". And this really is a truly fabulous piece of engineering and puzzling.

Those of us who bought it then received an email with basic instructions - the aims and then the do's and don'ts. Basically it is like most "sequential discovery" puzzles - you need to discover what is possible and find tools along the way that can be used at later times in various places. As with many others the important rules are "NO Banging, No Shaking/spinning, No external tools". The aim in the very first email was:

Challenge: Take my HEART 

Mine arrived just a few days later and the excitement was palpable in the puzzle world as we all scrabbled to open them at the same time - emails were shooting back and forth like wildfire! Wil always packs things very well and this time was no exception - it requires good knife skills to get into the cardboard box and then through the lovely gift box it had been sent in. Lifting the puzzle out came as a bit of a shock and did explain why the price was so high - it is HUGE and VERY heavy!!! Dimensions are 16 x 7.5 x 11 cm and the weight a staggering 1.89Kg (that's 4lb 2.25oz for you Americans!) - even just picking it up now to weigh it I get a shock. This huge weight plus the fact that it is all metal (steel and aluminium) means that you do NOT want to drop it - if it lands on a foot then you will be needing an operation (trust me! I have seen lots of these operations and they are not very nice!) If it lands on your wooden desk then you are going to have a very big dent - the puzzle, on the other hand, will be fine!

It's good to have a puzzle friend... Or is it?

Rattle Twist Duo

I have mentioned many times that I love the community associated with puzzling - there is no shortage of people to tell you about new puzzles, to stimulate you to try harder at solving some you are struggling with and also to either give tips or as a last resort, when you are about to rip your last remaining follicles of hair out, to actually tell you what to do so you can finally put a puzzle away! I feel very privileged that I have friends now from all over the world who either write comments on my blog or even contact me via email. In fact every morning when I wake up I have a few emails waiting for me to read from my new friends.

The Sidewinder and the Teddy!

Sidewinder

I seem to be coming to the end of my last batch of puzzles from Puzzle Master - this means that it is definitely time to order some more! You know I can't resist it - they have such a huge selection to choose from! The Sidewinder is one of Puzzle Master's own range of wire and string puzzles - as you know by now, the puzzles with string in them frighten me a lot due to the horrendous knots you can get into. Although I have to say that only one of the Puzzle Master puzzles has ever ended up so badly knotted that I have had to physically dismantle it to solve it.

This one looked fairly uncomplicated in it's construction so I figured that it would be unlikely to end up in too much of a mess. We'll come back to that later! It is really good value at $10 and whilst it doesn't look like much, remember that it is rated at level 10 out of 10 (Mind Boggling) so be prepared for a real challenge. It arrives in the usual nice clamshell packaging with the only instructions being to remove the string and balls from the metal structure. It is nicely compact at 13.3 x 4.1 cm and the string is 35cm long. This means it will fit in your pocket whilst you are out and about and annoy the hell out of your wife at all sorts of inopportune moments (OUCH! - sorry dear!). No solution is provided and if you need one then you can down load it from here.

More Torture from Wil Strijbos!

I have received quite a few fabulous metal puzzles from Wil Strijbos over the last year and have mostly just mentioned their arrival but not really reviewed them properly. So I will start to make amends by reviewing 2 more of his puzzles:

Aluminium Washer Cylinder

First is the Aluminium Washer Cylinder. This is an absolute classic - almost all serious puzzler have one or are actively trying to get one. I reviewed the original Aluminium cylinder here. I said then and still believe that this is one of my favourite puzzles of all time. It took me 8-10 hours to solve and I regularly hand this to other puzzle friends to play with - several have managed it in a more reasonable amount of time and some have wanted to use a hammer or chisel!!

So far only Oli has reviewed this puzzle on his blog here and Allard has just reviewed it here.

Time to rename Wil Strijbos - "The Puzzle Pusher"

More goodies from Wil

Yep! Wil is officially my puzzle pusher!

Recently he sent out a series of emails detailing some more goodies that he had in stock for purchase and of course I couldn't resist ordering a few more things that are shiny. At the same time as ordering from him I suggested that he would be the death of me - my wife is probably going to murder me in my sleep for all the clinking noises I make playing with his puzzles and the swearing under my breath!

In the same email I asked him about the future production of other puzzles. During a little to and fro of emails he copied in the whole group of puzzlers!! His own response was to berate me for asking for more puzzles when they would be the cause of my demise! He also expressed the sincere hope that Mrs S wouldn't murder him as the mere "inventor, maker and seller" of these puzzles. Laurie replied to all of us that he is actually the:
"PUSHER" of the puzzle-drug! (REAL ecstasy!)
Hence I am officially renaming him!!!

They arrived on Thursday and are as lovely as expected. This time I got the Concave Aluminium Dovetail, the Strijbos Bolt #3, Aluminium Washer Cylinder and the Bird in Cage. Puzzling heaven (or hell?)

Hanayama Cast Donuts

Cast Donuts

This lovely little puzzle came to me courtesy of Wil Strijbos. Whilst on his travels after the Berlin IPP, he had managed to obtain a supply of the latest Hanayama cast puzzle. This one is only available in Japan at the moment and if you want one ahead of the international launch then you will need to contact Wil (email me for his details). It has already been beautifully reviewed by Oli on his blog here.

Like my last Hanayama review (the Cast Loop) it was designed by Vesa Timonen, a hugely talented designer who has turned his hand to many other types of puzzle including Lox in Box and quite a few burr puzzles. It arrives in the standard, top quality Hanayama packaging, although being entirely in Japanese I cannot tell you what the instructions are! I have to assume that the aim is to disassemble and then reassemble it! It consists of 2 donuts (surprise!!!) of shiny chromed metal which are interlocked through their central holes. One is a standard chrome and the other is a blackened chrome (similar to the Cast Quartet). Like most of this type of Hanayama puzzle it is extremely attractive and very tactile. Hanayama has graded it a 4 out of 6.

Oh Dear! I'm in trouble again!!!

I have been on annual leave this last week and a bit and can't afford a holiday abroad due to the fitting of a rather nice new kitchen! So a few days were spent in London visiting my mother and the rest has been spent at home, tidying up and doing a little extra work on the side. During this time I made some purchases and didn't tell the present Mrs Sadler about all of them! Unfortunately, today they all got delivered at once! So now she has found out about all of them in one go! I may have to buy her another pair of shoes or a handbag to make up for it! It really gets expensive when I do that!!!!!

First of all, no trip to London is complete without a trip to Village Games in Camden to search for anything new and interesting. I could have spent a fortune there but I was aware that I had already placed orders elsewhere! I only came away with 4 puzzles and Mrs S breathed a sigh of relief as she didn't know about the others!

Village Games Selection

Here we have (from top left) Coffin's half hour puzzle, IQ18, Lox in Box II and Großmaul.

Recently Vinco had put up some new puzzles for sale and after my last little set of purchases (Dual tetrahedron, Tetrahedron 2 and an assortment of others) I new about the tremendous quality and beauty of these puzzles. I felt I had enough of the 4 and 6 piece coordinate motion puzzles so went for some others!

Vinco Selection

From the top left in rows we have: Duo Burr, Four Marbles, 3 Boxy, UFO, Ballerina, Ball Room, Vinco Tetrahedron and Sixi Cube (received unassembled). Droool!!!!

If that was not enough I received a little consignment from Wil Strijbos (I may as well just set up an automatic transfer of my salary straight to his account!)

Strijbos Selection

From the top: Melting block (with the lid and extra cube to the right), The Moon, Medal Maze, Aluminium Dovetail and finally Poplock T6 with copper rivets.

I am thoroughly in the doghouse now but at least I will have plenty of puzzles to keep me occupied whilst she is refusing to speak to me!! I have only just rearranged my puzzle collection and am not actually sure whether I have enough space for this lot!

Aluminium Puzzles by Wil Strijbos

Aluminium Cross

After a few months of lurking (and posting) on the Revomaze forums I noticed a whole forum devoted to "other puzzles". Having developed an interest in these other puzzles I noticed fairly early on the name Wil Strijbos came up with some regularity. He is a Dutch puzzle designer and seller who has no real web presence - an international man of mystery!!! There were many references to his aluminium cylinder which he makes in small quantities and sells to people on application. I obtained his email address from a fellow Revo-er and asked to be put on his email list (heaven only knows how big this list must be). Most weeks he sends an update about what he has available either of his own design or other rare puzzles he has found. The prices are very reasonable (although not dirt cheap) and he is absolutely wonderful to deal with - he answers enquiries quickly and is very helpful - he has even put things aside for me until I have the funds to pay!

Last weekend he sent out a notice that he was reissuing his first ever puzzle design - the aluminium cross.

"Long time ago (it was in 1979) I visited London for the first time. I discovered many new puzzles there. Many of the nice wooden puzzles I saw there were produced by a puzzle company called Pentangle. I wrote a letter to Pentangle and I received an invitation from Mr. James Dalgety. He was not only one of the directors but also an enthusiastic puzzle collector. James invited me to come over and see his collection, and nearly one year later, in 1980, we met each other at his house in Over Wallop.

For this occasion I was inspired to create a puzzle. I came up with the idea for this “Cross Puzzle”. It was the first puzzle I ever invented, and it was a start for me to create many more puzzles later on.

About the Cross Puzzle: At that time I have never seen any kind of this puzzles before. It is my own original idea, the only inspiration was my visit to James. The solution has nothing to do with rotational parts and there are no magnets inside. There is no force required, just use the spring power inside the Aluminium Cross.

Now, 32 years later, I decided to make this Cross Puzzle again. At that time, in 1980, I just made a few samples of the Puzzle."

I was quite intrigued by this and despite the fully solved pictures he posted of it, the mechanism was not at all obvious. The fact that it was shiny shiny and metal too appealed to the Magpie in me so after waiting a whole 10 minutes I asked for one!!! Amazingly it arrived on 4 days later (along with Cola bottles 1 & 4!!)

More Stuff - She's going to kill me if this continues!!!

Wil Strijbos, a brilliant Dutch puzzle designer and seller, sold me two new puzzles! They arrived last night and are absolutely beautiful!

The Green Apple Puzzle - a small aluminium apple (complete with stalk) which needs to be split into 2 halves. The apple has a horizontal seam across the middle and 4 dovetail joints each at 90° to each other. How is this possible. Something seems to rattle around inside. It comes with instructions but I refused to look at them - it took about 15 minutes of thought to work out how it should come apart, but when I tried it wouldn't budge. There is a second part to the puzzle which took me an extra 10 minutes to solve. There is a nice surprise inside!

The Aluminium Cylinder Puzzle. This is his second run of 100 of these - they are an silver aluminium cylinder withe a lid which is sprung and sits about 1mm proud of the top. The lid can spin and when depressed it releases several loose objects within the structure. I have a few ideas how to solve this but have only played for a very short time. It doesn't come with instructions but they are available from Wil on request. Searching the various puzzle sites shows that this is a VERY difficult puzzle and most who have solved it have done so partially by accident! I will give it a good shot.

Wil also sent me a freebie! A 3 Card Burr - this is 3 playing cards with various slots cut into them and obviously the intention is to have them interlock at 90° to each other - Very cool looking. Not tried it yet.

If you want to see the secret of the green apple then click the read more.
It will reveal another picture with it open showing how 4 90° dovetails can be opened as well as what makes the rattling.