Worth the Extraordinary Long Wait

For the Last of Eric's Signature

Sher-Lock

This was the last of the puzzles that the sadly missed Eric Fuller personally had a hand in making and the last puzzle that he personally signed. When this went up for sale after the devastating announcement, there was a huge queue of people attempting to get both a fabulous puzzle as well as the last of Eric's own handiwork. I was poised and ready logged in and nabbed my copy immediately before they sold out in just a minute or two.

I had to have it because the lock design looked fabulous (if Eric personally chose a puzzle design it meant that there was always something truly special about it), it was made from some stunning woods and, of course, because the designer Girish Sharma has proven himself to be an amazing designer despite being relatively new to the sphere.

Having placed my order, it took a week or so for the guys at Cubic dissection to catch up and post the puzzles out (March 15th). I watched the package wend its way through America to a postal port. It left the US within about 5 days and I saw it arrive in the UK and, as usual, it was trackable via the Royal Mail site...except after its arrival it stopped moving. All of us in the UK are used to this and we just wait a couple of weeks (sometimes 3) and it re-enters the postal service with a ransom note and sometimes there is evidence that they have attempted to solve the puzzle. This time, it did not re-enter the postal system. After a month I tried to get help through the Royal Mail helpline which took an hour on the phone and was no use whatsoever apart from acknowledging that HMRC had it somewhere. There is no way on earth to track it in the dark hole of HMRC. Eventually I was advised by Royal Mail to get the sender to try and track it via their claims system but this revealed that it was going to be sent back to the US with no explanation why. Aaaargh! Then 2 months later, with no warning, I received my puzzles with a ransom demand (a very large one!) and the beautiful toy was in my grubby hands. There was no explanation about what had happened and surprisingly, no evidence they had attempted to open the package. I can only assume that they lost it in a warehouse for 2 months and then found it in a corner somewhere.

But Oh boy, it was worth the wait! This thing is absolutely gorgeous! Made with quartersawn Cherry cage, Purpleheart pieces, and I had chosen the Marblewood key. It is quite robust at 3.1" x 1.75" x 4.8". The full name of this puzzle is "Sher-lock - a notched trifecta" which is a bit of a mouthful but there is a reason for this name. The blurb says:

"The name alludes to the three different configurations of the key-shaped burr piece within the solved puzzle."

The puzzle was sent out in a configuration (key pointing up under the shackle) that requires 25 moves to remove the first piece but there are 2 further assemblies with the key in a conventional front facing position (either horizontal or vertical) having a level of 19 & 24 moves. I set to on this shortly after I had finished with the Pelikan puzzles and was delighted to see the usual Cubic precision and finish with a lovely exploration of the moves. There are no long blind alleys and the exploration is lovely and exciting. I obviously had purchased the puzzle too quickly to have read the full description on the site as I suddenly was faced with a shock!! It says:

"The design takes advantage of subdivided voxels and angled half-unit pieces"

It was rather a surprise to me to be faced with triangular pieces within the burr sticks and my immediate thought was OMG, how am I going to model that in Burrtools? It took me a couple of hours and a big smile to find the full path through the puzzle to get my pieces ready for a photo:

Beautiful woods and incredible precision.
An alarming number of angled pieces!

I had been very careful to make sure that I used my usual to and fro approach so that I created some muscle memory to ensure that reassembly would be possible. I quickly attempted reassembly and realised I had a piece the wrong way around but this was quickly remedied and I was able to assemble it. Phew! Now I was confident enough to take it apart and examine the pieces more and think about the alternative assemblies - I don't think I will stand a chance of that but I will give it a few tries before I resort to Burrtools. My big worry is that I genuinely don't think I have the skills to render a puzzle with such complex pieces in Burrtools. This one may only ever be seen in the original shape.

One most precious thing for me is this - I have my last ever Eric signature squiggle:

Eric Fuller - we all miss you!

I Have a Storage Problem...

Solving the puzzles doesn't help!

Oskar's Paperclips

The detail is wonderful!

Mrs S has mentioned to me on several thousand occasions that I need to sort out my study! I always acknowledge the issue and then carry on playing with my toys and (shock/horror) keep buying more which adds to my storage issues. At the end of 2019 I had finally managed to acquire a set of Oskar's paperclips. I had been drooling over these for years, ever since I had seen it on Allard's website right back at the beginning of my puzzling career. I saw this as a fun puzzle but also an absolute masterpiece of puzzle manufacture - it looked so fragile and yet was perfectly safe to play with. I had attempted several times to get a copy through various auctions but had always been beaten. Finally Eric reproduced it for a third time and I was fast enough on my keyboard to get one of the 53 copies. This version in Grenadillo and Maple (unlike the previous 3 wood version) was one of only 53 made. The workmanship is superb with shoulder joints and reinforcing splines.

The puzzle was sent out disassembled with the pieces sandwiched between polythene fabric for safety. After taking my initial photos and having a quick fiddle, I put this on the shelf next to me to keep them safe from inadvertent damage and to prevent a certain cat gnawing on the ends (he couldn't resist small pokey objects for chewing). The flatpack nature of the puzzle as delivered was perfect for placing amongst books and pamphlets (it was next to my CFF journals). Over the months it sort of got hidden and I, blush, forgot about it - for 3 years!!!

This week, I was forced to do a little tidying up (not a lot) and came across my hoarded masterpiece. It was well stored but needed to be on show. Out it came and I had a little play. The dimensions are perfect. Everything slides and fits together with millimetre accuracy and I had a fun time exploring. I did use the picture on Puzzlewillbeplayed to work out the relative orientation of the pieces and the see the end result. Armed with that, I started work - the disassembly level is 15.2 and so was not going to be easy. It certainly is pretty confusing. There is a lot of movement possible at any one time but this means that there is a long way between moves and a lot to undo if you get stuck. 

It is extremely logical and actually solves more by thought than randomly trying things. It took me a while to realise that and I spent a happy couple of evenings playing with it before finishing my assembly.

Boy! It's tough to get good photo of this!

It is certainly even more beautiful having been assembled but now I have even more of a problem...it takes up MUCH more space like this and I need to find somewhere to put it. I very much doubt that Mrs S will let me keep it in the living room (where it probably should go) and there is no room amongst all of the rest of the "Fuller shelves". Sigh! I can see a complete reorganisation in my future sometime!

Eric Fuller - A Cubic Tribute

My main 3 Cubic Dissection shelves
Of course! There are others strewn throughout my house including a good few in my to be solved pile.

My first!

The puzzling world was rocked at the beginning of this week when word was posted of the very premature death of my friend Eric Fuller at only 47 years old. He was an unhealthy influence on my finances right from the start of my puzzling career with my first small batch having been bought from him in May 2011 under very special circumstances - when I reviewed them I pointed out how amazing and helpful he had been and this has been the case ever since. 

Eric was a man of strong feelings and strong actions - and as described by Steve of Boxes and Booze, he was fantastic fun to talk to and even better to hang around with (I met him at the 2 IPPs that I have attended). heaven help you if he took a disliking to you but his natural state was to be happy and outgoing and to everyone I have talked to he was larger than life and one of the most helpful puzzle creators you could hope to meet. 

His website was named because Eric loved puzzles that seemed to be made of smaller shapes/dissections. He particularly loved burrs and when he struggled to buy more for his own collection he decided to make his own and quickly decided this was what he wanted to do for a career. Despite being told that the idea would likely fail, Eric went to work and with the help of some of the best craftsmen in the world in 2002/3 he learned the techniques to make wooden shapes with extreme precision and Cubic Dissection was born. It very quickly became one of the go to sites for puzzlers and collectors to visit for high quality and, especially important to Eric, affordable wooden puzzles. For me when I started out in 2011, I had little idea how expensive things could be and after my beginning with the only moderately expensive revomazes, I moved onto mass produced puzzles before Eric's offerings were mentioned to me. Let's just say that things went downhill for my finances after May 2011!

Steve discussed the fabulous boxes that Eric created in his tribute and I, to my shame, only own one of Eric's boxes...the Be-box and Reactor box combination which I was able to justify as being firstly an N-ary puzzle. 

Bebox

Reactor box freed from Bebox

I hate to think how much of my money has ended up in Eric's bank account but I cannot complain...I have some of the most beautiful and fun toys to show for it and can say that I helped support one of the best puzzle craftsmen on the planet and helped him continue to make us all more objects of beauty and addiction. Here are just a few of those he created that I think show off the pinnacle of his craftsmanship.   

In my opinion, one series of puzzles that Eric created that shows off the incredible breadth of his skills are the New Old School burrs designed by the amazing Gregory Benedetti. He started out with the easier ones and stated that there were some that he never expected to be able to create but after pressure was applied by the puzzle community (we basically begged him to try), the whole set was finally brought into reality.

The NOS burr series in all their glory

The interior intricacies have to be seen to be believed!

The Ternary burr designed by Goh Pit Khiam (and improved by Eric) had been a huge object of desire for many puzzlers after the original limited edition made by Brian Young had long sold out. Eric managed to convince the designer to allow him to produce another set and we all pounced on it. In that same year Eric convinced Bill Cutler to let him make a set of his Binary burr puzzles as well. Let's just say that these were bought with alarming rapidity.

Ternary burr

Binary burr

Eric opened my eyes into the variety of 6 piece burrs that were possible by producing a set of captive 6 piece burrs which seemed very simple but were great fun to play with:

They look so simple and yet they are so much fun

Of course, you all know that I am partial to a burrset or 5 and my collection was hugely enhanced when Eric decided to make some for us poor addicted souls. He would not be content with just making the sets of sticks...he would always want to produce a beautiful and even puzzling box to store them in:

Penultimate Burrset

DDD Burrset

I started out in this puzzling catastrophe playing with some very complex maze puzzles and whilst they quickly were superseded by beautiful wood, there has always been a call to go back to a maze or two over the years and the very first "expensive" puzzle that I purchased was the Maze burr made by Tom Lensch and later I managed to get a copy of Derek's Rhombic dodecahedral version. Eric couldn't stand to be left out of such fabulous challenges and he started working with Derek to create a new and more challenging version. The final creation was one of the most gorgeous things Eric has ever created - the Split maze burr:

Split Maze burr

I still have a whole lot of the challenges to go through and that is before I start on the thousands and thousands that Derek created with his computer analysis.

After Andrew Crowell brought us a whole bunch of a sort of new type of puzzle that the community took to their hearts with huge enthusiasm, Eric wanted to jump on the bandwagon and produced a really lovely chunky and satisfying puzzle to solve, the BioTIC.

BioTIC doesn't look like much

28 moves and 9 rotations to assemble

The puzzling trend then really embraced sequential discovery puzzles and Eric not only jumped on board, he produced something really really special the Lock box (I know it's a box but I can have one because it is also SD!) I described this as a Masterpiece in thoughtful design:

Lock Box - a wonderful solve

Later that year, Eric went back to his very best craftsmanship - he combined a sort of Sudoku puzzle with interlocking linear pieces (dissections of a cube) with beautiful box making - the Reticulated cubes takes a very prominent place in one of my puzzle cabinets:

Just stunning and for someone addicted to wood, this is an essential collector's piece

Finally in this post and certainly not exhaustive but I have to actually post this. I recently solved the Akaki's picnic puzzle. This was Eric's contribution to TICs in a fancy box. The puzzling world has adored this series of puzzles and I only have Eric's version but it will be one of my top 10 puzzles solved this year.

Pieces all jumbled up here but beautifully made and enormously fun

Finally, bringing my collection up to date, I have to show off a couple of SD puzzles produced by Eric that I have not yet managed to solve: Jammed Gem and Pennytentiary look beautifully made as one would expect and according to the puzzle community, they are brilliant puzzles to work your way through. Above all, Eric knew that he could make more or less anything, but he his ability to spot something that was truly fun and challenging to solve rather than just yet another interlocking puzzle was what set him apart for the 20 years that he has been creating wonderful toys for us.

Pennytentiary

Jammed Gem

Rest in peace Eric. You will be hugely missed by a large community as well as your family and many many friends. I wish all the best to Steve, Tom, and Jeff who remain at Cubic Dissection and I hope that they can continue your incredible legacy. It has been a blast knowing you, talking to you and puzzling with you.

Rest in peace my friend.

Ali Was Wrong But Also Very Right!

Akaki's Picnic Basket from Eric Fuller

Correctly solved Tsubomi

Just a quick one today, I’ve been up in Edinburgh visiting the outlaws and wining and dining with Mrs S. it’s been a lovely break but not much time for puzzling. I have to start with an admission of error…

Last week's blog post was me raving about the amazing Tsubomi packing puzzle from my wonderful generous friend Frederic Boucher. I had owned it for an embarrassingly long time and failed to solve it due to a combination of working my arse off and having too little time, doing a huge number of big cases at work which definitely don’t leave me any ability to solve or play with toys at work and, much to the delight displeasure of Mrs S, I might have acquired rather a large backlog to solve before and after Tsubomi arrived.

I wrote about the puzzle having been delighted and dismayed when Ali solved it at the MPP in under an hour. I should not have been surprised because Ali solves most puzzles in under an hour - he is a machine!! Unfortunately Ali got it wrong. He did solve the puzzle sort of but in the wrong way. I had totally misunderstood the aim and thought that just placing the pieces in the box using linear moves and those were the instructions I gave him. I was contacted by Frederic the following day to tell me that I had got it wrong and hence made Ali get it wrong. The actual aim was to place all the pieces in the box leaving no visible gaps. This requires rotational moves. I will need to give it back to Ali to play with again. I, of course, have singularly failed so far! My friend Theo has made his own copy and had it solved (hence the photo) in under 24 hours - he’s amazing.

Whilst at the MPP Ali waxed lyrical about the Akaki's picnic basket puzzles. I admitted that I had bought them from Eric when he produced 3 from the series back in August last year. I then had to rather shamefaced admit that I had not even touched them beyond taking a photo for the database. I had carried them around at work for a few mo this but never found time and then I put them away in the study in my "to do" pile which completely buried them and I lost them for several months. Having been told that I MUST get them played with by Ali and everyone else who had played, I decided to put them in my bag for my trip up north.

Clearly from the picture at the top, I had not really worked out what was needed. I referred back to the instructions on Cubic dissection to establish what was required. Eric wrote:

"Akaki's Picnic is a wonderfully creative Packing Puzzle. The goal is to pack each 3x3 cube into the Picnic Basket so that all pieces are flush. Assembling the cubes outside the basket is trivial; the challenge comes when you try to fill the container. The handle of the basket blocks your progress, causing you to analyze the situation and think outside the box.

Akaki named the cubes after different foods you might find at a picnic. Each has a unique solution, representing a range of difficulties. We have chosen three of the more challenging cubes for this release. Each cube has four pieces and requires rotations:

• Egg (Birch) has a level 3.4.7.2 solution
• Sandwich (Jatoba) has a level 3.5.5.2 solution
• Wine (Bloodwood) has a level 4.4.5.3 solution"

At least I now realised that the mixed up colour pieces were just the delivery packing.

I started on the Sandwich and struggled to even make the bloody cube! I had to persevere - Ali had insisted. After about a ½ hour, I had the cube and then time to put it in the beautifully made Zebrawood basket. Luckily I knew that rotations would be needed and I didn’t waste any time. With 2 missing voxels in the exterior, this left me just 3 faces that could point upwards and 2 possible orientations of each face. Some possibilities could be dropped very quickly because there was no way on earth one of the larger pieces could be packed that way even with rotations. This was tricky but fun. It actually took me a couple of evenings to find it but when I did the delight was palpable. The perfect craftsmanship made for beautiful smooth movements and I was delighted to be able to take my first picture:

The Sandwich is packed

Next up, the Egg. This must have come from a Wombat's rear end because…cubic!!! I was on a roll as I managed to find the cube quite quickly but with only one vacant voxel on an edge I had 4 possible top faces with 2 orientations. The shapes had less restrictions to their insertion and orientation but the basket handle really does cause issues. It took me another whole evening of play and annoying Mrs S by ignoring her whilst on holiday but I was able to annoy her more with a shout of glee and showing her something she had absolutely zero interest in.

One Egg in a basket

I had saved the Wine to last. It had the highest solution level and one of the pieces was huge and very restricted in its' ability to be inserted in the basket. I actually spent quite a long time trying to find the cubic assembly before I could continue (as you know, I’m really not terribly right). To my horror, there is only one central empty voxel meaning that there are 5 possible top faces and 2 orientations. None of the assemblies was easy to drop because it was possible to get the pieces in all of them individually but only later in the assembly did it become apparent that the interaction of them blocked a lot of moves and allowed certain orientations to be ruled out. This final assembly was really tough for me. There is a big clue in that one of the pieces is a simple 3x1x1 cuboid but there was no removal of a piece with a single move which helped a lot to cut down the choices. The solution to this last one is superb! It was so. I have fun that I could not help myself and assemble and disassemble it repeatedly. Eric's beautiful wood finish made this a delight to play with.

Wine generally best in a bottle rather than a basket

The Bloodwood is absolutely gorgeous in this puzzle.

So…whilst Ali was wrong initially with one puzzle, he was absolutely dead right with another one. If you can get hold of this then don’t hesitate.it is beautiful and a whole lot of fun. I am told that Akaki sells these in plastic from his Etsy store and you can buy the stl files to make your own. There are also a whole lot more in the series. I would love it if Eric made some more of them to fit in his basket as I’d buy them ina heartbeat. But failing that, it would appear that Akaki's version will work with Eric's basket too. WTch this space.

This Alien Caused Me Months of Anguish

Visitor Q+ from Frederic

ResQ by Eric

Many months ago I missed out on managing to buy the ResQ sequential discovery puzzle from Eric's Cubic Dissection and bemoaned the fact on line afterwards (the puzzle was sold out of my basket whilst I logged into PayPal. It had been a big hit amongst the puzzle community (reviewed by Ken and it's predecessor Visitor Q by Brent). I was flabbergasted shortly afterwards when a wonderful friend and all-round generous chap (thank you Andrew) offered me a copy of the ResQ on loan so that I would not miss out and so that I could write a review and then I was truly delighted when Frederic Boucher contacted me afterwards to offer me one last copy of the Visitor Q puzzle to make up for it and then telling me that he had added an extra step to my copy to make it special. 

I was staggered when a package arrived with a whole bunch of puzzles which I am still working my way through. I have said to Frederic that I do not understand how his mind works - he has designed things that I can barely understand let alone create myself. There is one particular packing puzzle that I am completely stumped on despite trying to solve since October. Both the ResQ and the Visitor Q+ has been sitting in my rather upsetting pile 'o puzzles to solve for a while being picked up every few days or weeks and not getting anywhere.

I literally was unable to do even the first move. I was aware from the instructions on Eric's site that there were tools to be found and used during the solution and I sort of understood that this would also be the case with Frederic's version. Frederic had said:

Unlock the Vortex? How? Eric also mentioned the Vortex being unlocked. But nothing moved! In the ResQ there was one obvious thing that could be done and I think I did that straight away - I had released the Alien from his "psychic prison" but this isn't really help and putting it back in place was a fiddly bugger when you have middle aged man eyes like me and a cat stretched out on your lap much of the puzzling time - in the end I stole a tupperware container from the kitchen and stored the tool in that whilst I thunk©. I assumed that I had a tool but didn't know how to use it/them. But I did not have a tool for Visitor Q+ - what was going on. Yes, it was time to think© and, as you know, I am rubbish at that. I tried it for months with no success. Eventually, I looked at the two puzzles side by side and wondered what I could do with what I had on each and how that would/could be similar.

AHA!

I had a breakthrough late last week. Why had I not thought of that before? Well, I can answer that with the fact that I had completely ignored something with Visitor Q+ and had been frightened of scratching/damaging the ResQ wood. Stupid of me but finally I had found a way to make the first move and it had opened up a whole lot of puzzling for me. There was a whole lot of movement possible. I had to work quite hard to prevent rotations as they are specifically not allowed in the first part. The spaceship was found and it had to be manoeuvred through the vortex until it could  come out. This should have been the easiest part of the puzzle but I still struggled (I was happily doing both ResQ and Visitor Q+ simultaneously - yes, a very privileged position). For some reason, it took me a couple of days to release the spaceship (and with Visitor Q+ the Alien)

After this, I decided to concentrate on Visitor Q+ because there was less to do and I very much doubted my ability to simultaneously solve them now. I had to find a gift in the vortex - certainly nothing had been obvious during my early explorations. I guessed it must be something that would only be possible after the removal of the spaceship. It is quite interesting to see what is now possible with that rather significant cylindrical piece removed - there were a LOT of possible moves available to me and I had to be very careful not to get lost or force anything for fear of being unable to reset the puzzle. 

I found the gift quite by accident - actually my sleeping furry boy found it as it dropped on his head during my solving. It didn't wake him up and nearly gave me a heart attack as a small piece fell down the side of my armchair to be lost somewhere in the folds of fabric. Much swearing later and laughter from Mrs S and I retrieved my precious metal gift. My special copy of Visitor Q+ (the cause for the plus) had the extra step of finding the lost star inside the vortex. I spent another day moving all the parts of the vortex around (again being careful not to get lost) before noticing some "star-sign" and a few minutes later my puzzle was solved:

What a space odyssey!
Alien and spaceship freed from the vortex, a gold gift and the missing star.

This is simply wonderful - a brilliant gift from a brilliant friend - I cannot believe he created an extra step just for me - solving this has made my day/week/month/year and I am certain that this will end up in my top ten at the end of the year. Thank you so much Frederic, I will treasure it.

So, what about ResQ? Time to move on to solving that. There were going to be a good few more steps and they were going to be different. I realised that straight away because the move that had released the gift from Frederic's version did nothing for this one. Eric also had some different instructions:

1. Free the Visitor from his Psychic Prison

2. Unlock the vortex

3. Retrieve the Spaceship without using rotations (to avoid making the vortex even more unstable)

4. Navigate the vortex and retrieve the spaceship parts:

    -The thick and thin Antenna Assemblies

    -The silver Fuel Disk

    -The gold Reactor Orb

    -The six-orb Navigation AI Module

OK! Now what? I tried a lot of the movements that I had been using before and whilst it did not drop anything onto me or the cat, it did show me that there were going to be quite a lot of tools to find and use in various creative ways. This was fun, a LOT of fun but also very frustrating. The vortex was very unstable and pieces wanted to turn and move and drop into holes all the time making control quite awkward. Gradually, I found some pieces and then had to hunt for where to use them. At times these tools needed to be combined and this made for even more fun. I was on a roll!! Until I wasn't anymore.

I had found the Antenna assemblies, eventually found the silver fuel disk (that took me quite some time to realise what it was having seen it inside and not realised it was something I needed) and then the gold reactor orb. The navigation module was a problem. I could see where it was going to be, I had worked out how to combine my tools to get the compartment open and it wouldn't work! Bugger!!!!

Yes, my roll hit a brick wall. I knew I was on the right track but my combined tool could not reach to open the compartment. Now what? It was obvious...I had to move the compartment to where it would work. Yeah! Really obvious. But where? There were several possibilities and I spent several days trying to get things in place. No luck.

I should also mention that during all this manoeuvring I frequently got all my vortex pieces into positions where I could not back out - I wasn't taking notes, I was just moving pieces around (this included some fairly complex rotations) and I could not keep track of what I was doing. At several points there was a little chest pain and some swearing whilst I desperately tried to backtrack. In the end, I got really quite good at moving around the vortex into lots of different positions. I had noticed something in the puzzle which I was sure could not be a coincidence. Eric NEVER does anything without a good reason! I tried to use what I found but it was not helpful. After quite a few hours stuck at this position I asked for help. Allard was absolutely no help at all apart from telling me it was a bugger to reset (I think he had no recollection of the solution). I then asked Goetz for a hint and he reminded me of what I knew already but emphasised the feature I had found. Most importantly, he suggested that I get a light source to look inside at what I found.

%£$k!!! Eric is a sneaky bastard! I had been right all along but the positioning was off centre and I had not been doing it right for days! As soon as I had seen this, I was able to carry out the appropriate manoeuvre after a long sequence through the vortex first and I retrieved my AI module:

My goodness what an effort went into this!

Time for some photos. Time to reset both the puzzles and write my blog post! Yay!

Except...I cannot remember where all the parts of the ResQ actually belong! I am currently left with a couple of pieces left outside the puzzle and no idea where they belong! Aaaargh! I really hope that I can work it out as it would be really really embarrassing to return it to Andrew with a piece out of place!

So what do I think? These two puzzles are some of the very best I have ever played with! Visitor Q is a wonderful experience and I am delighted to have a personalised copy. Then Eric has taken the idea and run with it out into the galaxy. It is simply incredible! I am very unhappy that I did not manage to purchase a copy for myself but am so so grateful to Andrew for lending me his copy (thank you mate) - I will return it once I have put it back together. The two of these puzzles will be pretty high in my top ten this year. If you get a chance to buy the ResQ then jump at it - you will love it!

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed...

And now I'm Blue!

My table of toys - some have been here months or even years!

Much to the chagrin of Mrs S, my puzzle arrivals keep on coming and I haven't had time to put any away in ages - they are EVERYWHERE! I have quite a lot that I haven't managed to solve or haven't managed to even play with yet. Some of my most longstanding puzzles that are suitable to be left somewhere warm and which are suitable to dip into periodically are left on a side table in our conservatory. I find that at weekends, after the obligatory exercise on the rower (if I get fat, she will chuck me out! 😱), I tend to sit on the sofa next to these puzzles and pick up something to idly fiddle with. Sometimes I don't get a chance to sit down because its not always my seat...

It's warm in here! Zzzzzz
Sometimes I wish I was a cat!

A correspondent of mine (that's you, Steve) also seems to have a penchant for Aaron Wang's disentanglement puzzles and recently asked me how I had gotten on with the Boxing Gloves puzzle and if I could provide a clue to help him. I shamefully had to admit that I had singularly failed to solve it in over 4 years - shame on me! That puzzle has been sitting on that glass table for longer than any other - I keep thinking that I should be able to solve it and keep failing at it. 

Boxing Gloves - looks familiar?

Does it look familiar? It should do...it is "just" a Ball and Chain puzzle - I have written about them before in their various guises, from the original classic that I bought from the sadly missed Livewire puzzles to the fabulous complex versions from Aaron I bought in 2015 and again last year which I had so much fun with. The thing about ball and chain puzzles is that they have a base move that they all share but after (or even before) that they need careful setting up and obviously careful movements after that. The Boxing Gloves is doesn't even look that complicated unlike the Maze B&C that I failed at so spectacularly last July. One thing that frightens me about these puzzles is the tendency to get into a terrible knot. Recently, Aaron has been using wonderful quick release mechanisms so that it is easily possible to reset a tangled puzzle but this one has nothing to help you if you get into a mess - I was rather frightened of it but could not stop myself from trying it every few weeks or months.

After my recent correspondence, I had to try again. I sat down (having moved the cat) on Good Friday and started playing again. I kept getting into the usual trap and having to carefully backtrack to avoid the inevitable mess and ended up sitting staring at it thinking© to myself that it is just two interlocked Ball and chain puzzles! It should not need anything fancy to solve it. Why wasn't my standard B&C approach working? The second one always could not be set up properly. 

At that point the cat insisted on more food and I put it down to feed him. During that process my thoughts went along the lines of..."if the second one is always set up wrong then what if I don't have a second one?" That sounds fairly cryptic but if you are reading this, Steve, then you have a fairly big clue right there! I tried something that I had not thought of before in 4 years and it didn't work - something wasn't quite right. Looking at it, though, it was clear why and I needed a very specific setup move before trying the same thing again. It frightened me quite a bit because the whole thing seemed on the verge of a knot and it required every single bit of the length of that chain but suddenly...

Aha! At last!

I cannot believe it - I have finally solved an old puzzle after years of attempts. It is a fabulous idea and one I should have managed earlier but needed me to have a particular train of thought©! Returning it to the beginning requires the same setup move (which took me a little while to find again) and then the usual sequence for this style of puzzle. Thank you Aaron, it is wonderful!

Anti-Gravity Box+

Next I tried something new - I had received a few beauties from Eric recently including the Anti-gravity box+. The plus here is because Eric worked with Frederic Boucher to add an extra challenge to his original puzzle giving us 2 sets of 6 sticks to be inserted into the box, one has 2 solutions and the other solution. Eric has beautifully made this from Iroko and Paulownia with magnets glued in flush either on the side or end of the pieces. The two puzzle sets can be told from each other by the presence of a decorative dowel in the end of the set with the unique solution. 

The top of the box has a nicely fitted acrylic lid to allow the failed puzzler to quickly remove the pieces either to try the next puzzle or, more usually, to start again having failed miserably. My initial thought was to find a stacking method that would not allow the magnets to repel each other and then simply slide the pieces inside whilst using gravity and tilting to get the pieces to where I wanted them. Doh! I should have read the instructions properly - the box has to be placed on a work surface/table and cannot be manipulated after that. The challenge is to insert the pieces through the two windows and any manipulation of those pieces can ONLY be carried out using the sticks themselves - you are not even allowed to poke your fingers inside. Now that really ups the ante. Yesterday, having finally convinced myself that I had definitely understood the Boxing gloves, I decided to try this. Luckily this time the cat was on my lap and I could use him as a table. The snoring was a little off-putting though. The set with two solutions has an extra magnetic piece and this makes manipulation quite a bit simpler (although not easy by any stretch of the imagination). After about an hour of trying various ideas, I finally worked it out and had my box packed - the lazy boy had not even woken up to admire my efforts. The next challenge was a variant of the first needing quite a bit more thought© and planning. I had that challenge beaten in another half hour and was feeling quite chuffed. At last I can place my prowess on the same level as those of Brent (Five Sinatras) and Jerry Loo. Except...I have a nagging feeling when reading their reviews that I might have done something I was not allowed to do. I think I will have to ask Fred whether I have been silly or not. If you get a chance to buy this puzzle then I think it is a perfect challenge for an idle hour of puzzling which should leave you full of admiration for Fred's warped brain and Eric's craftsmanship.

Something borrowed??? Over 9 months ago, I was very kindly lent a copy of the ResQ puzzle (again designed by Frederic Boucher and made by Eric) and I have been playing with it off and on every few weeks when I get time. To my eternal shame, I have found only one move and discovered a tool. Having found my tool, I have no idea what to do with it - there seem to be absolutely no "tool-holes" for me to place it and all I can do is admire the wonderful workmanship. I am very grateful to Andrew for lending it to me and his enormous patience as I have kept it for so so long! This is how puzzle friends are - such a wonderful bunch!

This leaves me feeling a little blue - but not as much as a partial solve...

Sax 2

Another fabulous challenge that I had bought from Aaron was a set of pure wire puzzles designed by Shuai Chi and beautifully made by Heping Gao. I loved the look of these for the theming but also the fact that they are pure wire meaning no knots. It does not, however, mean that they are easy. Aaron has given them all a level of 10+ which means that he found them pretty hard to solve himself and that means that a simpleton like me will really struggle and, oh boy, did I struggle!

Over the last 6 months since they arrived I have played with all three of them and can vouch that they are very very tough. Whilst they look very similar, they are all distinctly different and moves that are possible on one are not possible on the others. Seeing as I was so flush with success from the Boxing gloves and then I chose to have yet another try at this set that had beaten me so far (it has been in my conservatory stash the whole time). I chose to try the Sax 2 puzzle because I thought that one less obstructing ball might make for an easier puzzle. To be honest, this probably isn't the case because the loop on the end of the shuttle effectively causes a major obstruction because it cannot pass through the lowest of the hoops on the main body. I wasn't to know that at the time. 

There are some very interesting movements possible in this puzzle and it blocks up quite easily but during all my experimentation had never gotten to a point where I got lost and couldn't backtrack to the beginning. I was on a bit of a roll - I made a discovery that wasn't going to work but looked like it should so it was time yet again to Think© (damn you, Allard and your thinking - it's not good for me). The discovery really looked like I was on track but the next step was blocked. This forced me to do something I had not done before - I tried to picture the moves in my head if the blockage wasn't there and this should definitely solve the puzzle. So how do I circumvent the blockage? Oooh! What if I? Yessss! I am not used to solving disentanglement puzzles like that - I was able to plan out the appropriate moves in my mind and before long I had this:

Finally!

So why am I so blue? Having had something old, new and borrowed must be the reason. At this moment, I still have the puzzle in two pieces - I have spent a whole day trying to return it to the beginning and seem to be missing a trick. My head now hurts quite a lot and I think I might need to put it down for a while! Once I have it fully solved i.e. returned to the beginning and then moved both ways a second time then it will be time to try the others in the series - wish me luck!