A Jigsaw So Good That It Soothes The Soul

Avocets by Mike & Gill Hayduk

As a rule most of us serious puzzlers tend to look askance at jigsaw puzzles. I have reviewed only a few of many years now but there are some that are definitely worth playing with either for the huge challenge or, as in this case, for the sheer beauty and soothing nature of the puzzle.

Big Steve collects pretty much everything under the sun and his wife must be even more angry than mine! Just over a week ago there was an auction in the Sheffield auction house and Steve saw something that he fancied adding to his collection. He duly asked whether I would mind collecting it rather than them posting it to him for an exorbitant price. I was only working a half day on Monday and had some time to head into town and pick up the result of his winning bid. I was rather surprised at the size and weight of it. I immediately saw why he wanted it.

We have the Avocets Jigsaw puzzle made by Mike and Gill Hayduk. Apparently this husband and wife team had been producing gorgeous wooden creations in the 1980s (their website no longer exists but was active up to at least 2021 according to the wayback machine). I guess they must have stopped producing these works of art relatively recently. This is a shame as, had I known about them, I might well have ordered something from them. Steve has been buying their puzzles for years having bought directly from them and more recently finding them in auctions. His collection is very extensive and I have spent quite a while drooling over the gorgeous wood. This particular puzzle is made with quite an assortment of woods: The Avocets from Sycamore, Walnut, Zebrano and Ebony. The background from two shades of Tulipwood and the bowl with stand from Iroko. It is truly gorgeous and rather frightening in its complexity.

Having picked it up I was encouraged to just invert the bowl to drop out the pieces and get playing. I was not sure that I could reassemble it if I did but having had so many of my own puzzles irrevocably scrambled by Steve and Rich at MPPs, I decided that if I gave it to him in pieces then I couldn't be held responsible. Here goes:

Oh boy! This might be impossible!

I set to work on it as and when I could find time and luckily I had taken a picture of the fully assembled version because there is no way that I would be able to do it without that as a hint. 

I began with the birds and true to form, a certain little demon was very interested in joining in and maybe even running off with some pieces of birdie.

I want that piece

Watching that the birds don't fly away

I worked on this gorgeous creation for a good few hours in total and have to admit that whilst I am not generally interested in jigsaws, I found this one very very soothing. It is beautifully made and very tactile. The pieces fit together like a dream.

I suspect I might be competing with Steve if any more come up for sale in the future.

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The Secret of Two Friends

I need to post an update from the last time I reviewed this wonderful little puzzle chest from Pelikan. When it was first sent out the lock and keys were too small and fragile but after both myself and Ivan had pointed it out, they corrected it and sent out new versions. I needed to spend more than a week working on it with the new lock and keys before I was finally able to solve it.

I found the first small part of the mechanism after a little exploration and got stuck there. I would like to say that it was the faulty lock and keys that were the reason but that would not be right. Even with the new version I struggled to find the next step. I shone a torch all over and could not see anywhere I could use the tools I had been given. The disguise of the next step is just superb! I tried using all the pieces I had in ever more creative ways but could not seem to unlock the chest. I had worked out how it should open but I kept missing the crucial step in the solution. After a weekend of failure, I forced myself to think© and tried something completely new. The Aha! moment is wonderful. Inside there is a whole lot of treasure – keep it away from any small children or pets or it’s going to be swallowed! This is definitely a lovely puzzle for anyone’s collection and as a rare Pelikan design it is well worth getting hold of.

This wonderful Pelikan design is still available to buy (the fancy version with sub fossil oak has sold out). It is very worthwhile getting hold of a copy. the mechanism is clever and very well disguised.

Jagsaw VI - An Exercise In Logic

Jagsaw VI by Alexander Magyarics

I received a nice big package from Alexander at the end of the year and when opened I was delighted to see a whole bunch of interesting challenges in the box - Mrs S was not quite so delighte, however.

I was intrigued to see something that is new to Alex's repertoire, a jigsaw puzzle. As you know I have been a little fixated on Jigsaws recently having had very mixed success at the wonderful jigsaws in trays designed by Haym Hirsh. 

The interesting thing here is that it is only a six piece jigsaw with no frame and instructions to make a 3x2 array of the pieces:

Instructions that give away nothing except a very big clue...only 1 solution!

 Having seen that there are only six pieces and no restriction of a frame, I decided that this was to be my next challenge this year. After all, how hard can it be? Have I learned nothing from these blasted puzzle designers yet? Apparently not! 

The pieces are standard jigsaw pieces with all the protuberances or orifices being either rectilinear, singly curved or doubly curved which restricts which pieces can intersect with each other. I started initially with random pairing of pieces to see which pieces could interlink and how many possibilities for each piece there was. It quickly became apparent that it would not be possible to solve this with random trial and error. The pieces were too similar and with six of them I could not keep track of what I had tried. Time for a little think©ing. This was going to hurt!

This might make things much harder!

I spent a good couple of days fixated that there would be no interior gaps (i.e. the single curved protuberances would only interact with single curved orifices. I thought that this would significantly limit the number of possible interactions that I needed to try and would leave me with a pure logic based solution. Two days wasted on that - it certainly helped with the logic but, of course, Alex would never make it quite that easy! Eventually the realisation whacked me over the head that there were going to be gaps and irregularities in the outline. The only stipulation in the instructions was that they should fit together in the 3x2 grid. The shapes would restrict the way they could fit together by preventing some fits completely but if there was a gap then that would still be allowable. This then helped me find one piece that could ONLY be oriented in one way on the outer edge. From this, it was possible to work out several possible pieces that might go next but walking this pathway seemed to end in dead ends fairly fast (I was hoping that this was the sort of approach that Alex had intended because my head was hurting quite a lot at this stage). I did need to keep track of 2 or three possible pathways and eventually narrowed it down to decide on another definite external edge.

Once I had worked out this, it became a little bit more logical but still a fair bit of trial and error as every piece had several possibilities.

Finally, after about 5 days, I had my solution. It was very satisfying. This is a rather clever puzzle which needs thought and planning rather than trial and error. It certainly is good for beginners to show them that simple looking puzzles might not be as simple as they appear. Having said that, I think most beginners would give up long before they found the solution. I very nearly gave up myself. I think my Jigsawing period might have to stop for a little while due to brain-ache!

Having found my assembly, I had a fun time putting this into Burrtools to prove to myself that there was indeed only one solution and that it did not fit together with no gaps. Thank you Alex, it was a lot of fun! Plenty more challenges left to do from your box (although Mrs S is threatening to hide the box away 😱.

It Seems That Less Is Definitely More

Having Less pieces seems to make things more difficult!

 

J1GSAW by Haym Hirsh from Nothing Yet Designs

Recently I have been buying and playing with a whole bunch of very complex puzzles. This includes the Who Dares Wins from Shane and the Two Brass Monkeys, the Ant Hunt from Boaz Feldman, Chained Key from Luke Waier, Blinded from Dee Dixon, the Box of Celts from Numbskull puzzles and the Fibonacci Box from Jesse Born. I have been playing with these amazing puzzles and getting absolutely nowhere with any of them! I am beginning to think that I have lost my puzzling mojo yet again. Mrs S is starting to say that if I can't solve anything then I really shouldn't buy them. Whilst I protest that I don't know that I can't solve them until after I have actually received them, I am actually beginning to think that she might be right. 😱

Having failed so badly at these puzzles, I went back to something "simple". Except maybe they are not simple! Haym Hirsh, as well as being the head honcho in the Mechanical puzzle community FB group, is also a superb puzzle designer of apparently simple designs which have a hidden twist to them. Recently, he has been producing some lovely little Jigsaw puzzles along the lines of those we have come to love from Yuu Asaka. In this case, Haym has made a few with varying numbers of pieces. The 4 pieces challenge was sent back to Blighty in Ali's suitcase for me and I will be picking it up at the next MPP but I have been playing with the 5 and 10 piece Jigsaws for the last few weeks or so.

Jig5aw by Haym

I had tried and failed the Jig5aw a month or so ago and had spread it far and wide at work in the hope that someone else might manage to educate me in how to solve these apparently easy challenges. Having received it at the beginning of September, it had remained unsolved.

In desperation I picked up the 10 piece puzzle and had little hope for success. After all, if I can't pack 5 pieces then I stand no chance on 10! The frame is much bigger than expected when putting an array of pieces inside but it quickly becomes clear that a simple solve is not possible:

Lots of space but not quite enough

Unusually for me, I looked at this attempted solution and had a "what if I do this?" thought. As a man who is most unaccustomed to thoughts, this really caught me by surprise. I rearranged a few of the pieces and opened up some space and it didn't solve it but left me with space for another of those rogue thoughts. After 10 minutes, I had actually solved it - Yay! Has my mojo come back? Maybe just for Jigsaw packing puzzles?

Quick...get the Jig5aw challenges out: There are 3 colours to try, each with their own challenge. 5 pieces to fit in the tray. It is quite easy to get almost there:

Orange - almost there?

Yellow - not even nearly

Red - this is bloody impossible!

I have spent a few days doing the same things over and over again and if I wasn't insane beforehand then I am rapidly approaching it! How can a 5 piece jigsaw be so damned difficult?

I have managed to solve the orange version which is the only thing that has reclaimed the remnants of my sanity. I have had lots of really really good ideas for the red and yellow challenges. The only problem  being that my really good ideas have all been wrong. Despite "only" being a jigsaw and despite "only" having 5 pieces, this is a really good puzzle. It is perfect for experienced puzzlers but also a wonderful introduction to non-puzzlers to try and get them hooked on our addiction.

At the moment the 5 piece puzzle is solved out at Nothing Yet Designs but I am sure that if enough of you badger Tye, then he might deign to make some more copies.

Thank you Haym and Tye for making me mental. I do the ECT list in Sheffield on a Friday morning and may well volunteer for a zap or two myself after this! 🤪

Complex Heaven and "Simple" Hell from Japan

Aris 3 from Osanori Yamamoto

I follow Osanori-san on Facebook where he shows off a curious mix of beautiful Japanese countryside, delicious looking Japanese food and fabulous puzzles that he has designed and made. Usually my fix of his designs comes from the incredible Pelikan puzzle workshop - he creates fantastic packing puzzles with interesting openings like the Aris 3 above (the Palace puzzle is still available from Pelikan) or fun framed burr puzzles (the Typhoon S1 is also still available from Pelikan). Recently I saw some new designs and contacted him to see whether he would sell them directly to me (Pelikan cannot make everything he designs) and, to my delight, he agreed. This time the cost for one puzzle was matched by the price of the postage and so I added an extra puzzle to the purchase to make it worthwhile. Mrs S was not terribly impressed but she does like to get value for money and couldn't fault me for my reasoning. 

There is something about Yamato post... it is just super efficient! I have stuff ordered from the US and it takes weeks (in fact my order from Cubic Dissection seems to have been misled by customs here 😢). My order from Osanori arrived 4 days after he posted it. This seems to happen for almost all Japanese post - it's amazing. The puzzles always arrive with an alternative packing which os quite neat. This one required a rotation to remove all the pieces. I have 3 relatively complex Walnut pieces to fit into my box in such a way that the openings are completely filled. This time the box has some diagonal edges which significantly inhibits sliding movements and also enlarges the area that must be visibly filled. This was going to be a real challenge.

As usual, I start looking for cubic shapes and realise that there are a LOT of them. After I had solved the puzzle, I went to Burrtools to model it and found that there are 65 3x3x3 cubic shapes that can be made from these 3 pieces. Thank heavens for the restricted opening that creates shape constraints. The requirement for a 2x2x1 top face and diagonally opposite 2x2x1 at the bottom of a column significantly reduces the assemblies to choose from. I had found 6 or 7 myself and BT tells me that there are 14. You would think that having a puzzle with 14 possible assemblies to work through would be a hellish puzzle but no...Osanori has thought about it and the most complex shape has been designed such that possible ways it can be inserted into the box is very restricted. I quickly found that only one assembly seemed to have this piece in a suitable orientation. I was off! Time to work out the sequence of movements. Oh boy - this was really quite a challenge. I usually try it outside the box, first of all simulating the disassembly of a supposed finished puzzle and I really struggled - I just didn't have enough fingers/hands to hold the pieces in the positions they needed to go. I thought about asking Mrs S to hold a piece whilst I moved the others around it and quickly thought better of it - she was unimpressed with my deliveries and I didn't want to risk a Whack! Ouch! In the end I had to abandon my approach and decided to just go straight for an assembly. It looked great as I got all three pieces partially into the box with various tails hanging out through the orifices. It looked like I just needed to "do the usual dance" to  settle them into place. Improved really hard to do it and I even abandoned that approach for a while thinking it was the wrong assembly. I went back to forming cubes again and could not find a better one. After 4 days of trying, I finally upset the sleeping cat by shouting my success. 

There was one particular move I had missed. The pieces pirouette around each other whilst the complex one moves in and out in different directions making room. The disassembly level is 16.2.7 which is an astoundingly difficult level for such a seemingly simple design. This was puzzle heaven!

Gem by Osanori Yamamoto

What was the extra puzzle that I chose to "make up the postage"? It was this gorgeous creation. Osanori gave me a list of other puzzles that he had ready in stock and I went through his FB page to look at the pictures. The Gem was one that he had shown off back in August 2022 and I recalled thinking it looked interesting and very pretty at the time. When I told Osanori-san that it was my choice as extra puzzle, he seemed pleased and said that it was his favourite puzzle.

When it arrived, I was staggered by the beauty of it - the picture doesn't show it's sheer vibrancy very well. The other impressive feature of this one was the texture of the finish on the pieces. They are just silky smooth. The only other craftsman I can recall who finished wood like this was my friend John Devost who (when he was crafting) used a triple buffing technique which left the pieces of wood so delightful to touch. Alas, I no longer have any of John's toys in my collection. I knew that this one was going to be wonderful just from the sensation alone.

The 3 rings of wood need to be inserted into slots in the cube with one at 90º to the other 2. I immediately saw a problem - all three pieces are 2 voxels thick and one of the slots is only a single voxel wide. There was a lovely aha! moment as I found that for just one of the pieces and nice sequence of rotations allowed an insertion of one of them. Interesting. Next it was time to work out the other 2. What relative positions should they be in and how to get them to interlock with the other piece? 

Absolutely delightful sequence

The solution took me only about half an hour but again a lovely aha! moment made better by the silky smoothness of the pieces and how they glide over each other. I could see why this was one of Osanori-san's favourite puzzles. It is delightful. Another piece of Japanese puzzling heaven.

My friend Neal, might have sent me some new Tics and I had better play with them to justify their arrival before Mrs S breaks them up into matchsticks! 😱

The 6 Dessert TICs designs from Laszlo Kmolnar - Mrs S is going to murder me!
Made by Jeff Baz and Matt Hochberg

Gifts Are a Wonderful Thing!

Latest board burrs from Juno
Mrs S' birthday present

Things have been a bit busy at PuzzleMad HQ recently. Work continues to be horrendous and made worse by the awful state of the NHS in pandemic times and as winter sets in. Increasing numbers of the non-vaccinated keep getting admitted to the hospital where they are now preventing us getting the elective patients into hospital. This is preventing hip and knee replacements, elective aortic surgery, reconstructive surgery. Basically, I spend my days doing either urgent/emergency cases, trauma or cancer cases. This doesn't leave much time or energy for puzzling. It doe NOT, however stop the puzzles arriving!

Six so far

Mrs S didn't know it until I told her but she had bought me some gorgeous wood for my birthday (yesterday) when I celebrated being extraordinarily old! Junichi Yananose had created 2 more in the Grooved board burr series which of course would be essential and an extra that was not part of the series but I/she couldn't resist. I had been reminded of these when I saw the sudden return of Mike to blogging with a review of the first two in the series over on Puzzlepusher (#1 here and #2 here) and the hurried over to Pluredro to ensure that Mrs S got me a good present. Needless to say, she is delighted with her purchases! Whack! Ouch! These were only unwrapped yesterday so I cannot say how good or how hard they are. I hope that they are easier than the reassembly of last week's Sweeney Todd which remains in pieces on my puzzling chair. I have the assembly solution from Big Steve and think I will need to admit defeat and go for it.

Another gift came to me a few weeks ago from the wonderful and incredibly generous Frederic Boucher:

Frederic Boucher collection

ResQ on loan

Frederic contacted me after reading that I had missed out on the ResQ from Eric (this is based on his Visitor Q which Eric added to). I am extra-ordinarily lucky to have received a unique enhanced version called the Visitor Q+. Frederic specialises in packing puzzles but not exclusively and he decided to send me a selection. I have been playing away since they arrived and have seriously struggled. Several of these are limited editions which he has made himself revealing fabulous woodwork skills and a few have been made as a collaboration with Osho using laser cut wood. 

I immediately tried the Tsubomi because it was gorgeous but quickly put it down due to the extreme difficulty, I then moved on to something I felt was more manageable with the Puzlin packing puzzle:

Puzlin

How hard can that be? 6 pieces to make a 3x3x3 cube to get through a small entrance in the top of a box. I have solved lots and lots of these courtesy of my friends Osanori Yamamoto and Alexander Magyarics. The difference here is the apparent simplicity of the pieces. It shouldn't be terribly tough, I thought. Then I realised how many ways there are to form a cube with these pieces. How many of these cubes can be inserted through the limited opening? Trial and error started at first until I realised that was a stupid way to go about it. I needed to Think© - something I am not very good at. There is a single cubie fixed inside the box in a really awkward position and this was both a curse and a blessing. Initially I cursed it because it really got in the way. Having finally realised how stupid I was being, it ended up as a blessing when I thought about how it would interact and restrict the placement of the pieces inside. I significantly reduced the number of cube shapes to try and then went about out of the box planning of sequences. Oh that is really quite clever! I think most puzzlers will get it fairly quickly if they think© but not if they try brute forcing it.

Really enjoyable

Having exhausted myself with packing, I couldn't resist a coin maze puzzle:

Based on a design by Osho

The Take 1 has a 1 yen coin inside and 2 sliders at different levels with holes in them. The coin can be moved into a hole in the slider and then shifted elsewhere inside the tray. At this point it is no longer visible and it requires dexterity and deduction to think where it could be moved to as it works it's way through an internal maze and then out. This is another fun challenge with the added frisson of fear when you move the coin and it is completely out of sight and doesn't appear to be anywhere where you expect it. I tried a series of moves and thought it would be released except...it didn't! On top of that realisation, I couldn't return it to anywhere where it could be seen. I had absolutely no idea where it was inside the tray or even what level it was on. OMG! After a bunch of swearing and desperately turning it over and over it reappeared in the start hole. Phew! Time, yet again, to think©! This time I planned it through and decided what layer I needed to be where and what way around it had to be before and after each movement. Suddenly I had my coin - I was RICH!!! Except 1¥ is just $0.0064 so maybe not rich in cash - just rich in experiences:

Very satisfying!

Putting the coin back is just a "simple" matter of reversing what I had done. Except I hadn't written it down and had to work out the reverse path - very satisfying!

Next up a "simple" tray packing puzzle. 

Shark Attack

Another puzzle made in collaboration with Osho - this reminded me of a few that I had bought from Mine. I am truly awful at tray puzzles but this one also looked like there would be an initial trial and error period before having a realisation and a more focussed attack to finally get the solution. I was absolutely right about it - I did this whilst watching TV and it seemed impossible until there is an understanding of how the pieces can lie amongst each other. It took about half an hour and was a delight to sove something without swearing at it. No the solution is not going to be shown! 

Thank you so much Frederic! You have been too generous! I am truly amazed that you would give me the opportunity to own and play with such wonderful puzzles and especially to have one that you have adjusted to be a challenge specifically for me. I look forward to playing with the rest over the next few weeks and months.

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Quezzle

Now this one was not strictly a gift. I had been contacted by Ksenia from the Quezzle Kickstarter campaign and they asked my opinion of their idea. I told them that it looked beautiful but seemed to me to be just another jigsaw. They insisted that there was more to it than that and would I take a look? I was happy to do that for them and a large package arrived on Tuesday last week (much to the disgust of "she who frightens the Western world"). Unfortunately, due to work I did not get a chance to even open it until my birthday yesterday. 

So my opinion here is based on just the opening and photography and handling the pieces. I have still not had a chance to start the puzzling. I did not pay for this - it is a sample provided for review. My first impressions are that this is absolutely gorgeous! I am not a jigsaw puzzler and have only reviewed one before on my site (it was an extremely high quality puzzle). These are right up there with the highest quality jigsaws that I have ever seen. It is beautifully packaged. The boxes are laser cut wood which is colour printed all over. 

Under the lid

Beautifully made pieces

The attention to detail is perfect. they have packaged 2 feet to stand up the lid of the box whilst you are working on a puzzle. The pieces are wrapped in a jute sacking. Just looking at some of the pieces it is obvious that they also make a 3D shape as well as are part of the jigsaw.

One thing that appeals to me is that the larger puzzle of 1000 pieces has been split into 4 puzzles of 250 pieces which can later have edges removed to be replaced with provided cross-linking pieces. So is it just a jigsaw? Initially I thought so but then I opened out one of the "documents" that are packed on top of each of the internal the jute wrappings:

There is a LOT more to it

There are multiple challenges and even an app to be downloaded. I have to say that I have never seen anything like it before and despite not being a jigsaw puzzler, this actually really interests me. I did see that my friend Ivan Danik had showed it off on Facebook as well as on his YouTube channel. He also seemed to really like what he saw.

The Quezzle has only one day left on Kickstarter before it then goes on to other crowdfunding sources. I know that Kickstarter can seem risky but they do seem to be able to manufacture these based on what various reviewers have been sent. If jigsaws with extras are your thing then I think you will love this puzzle. Who knows, I might even get Mrs S to join in!

Take care everyone - it's still dangerous out there! Wear your masks in public and get your vaccine and booster as soon as you can.

A Frustrating Week Finally Ends in Some Happiness

Jigsaw Puzzle 29

I was staggered in August when the results of the IPP design competition came out and the descriptively named Jigsaw puzzle 29 (yes, it has 29 pieces) won a Jury honourable mention prize! This very nicely made acrylic jigsaw puzzle was designed and produced by a very nice gentleman from Japan called Yuu Asaka. I chatted with a few people who had been there and asked how come a simple jigsaw won a prize? Everyone said that the puzzle was fantastic and deserved to win - they had all enjoyed solving it a lot. No more information could be extracted from them and so I contacted Mr Asaka via Facebook and asked if he had any for sale. He did not have them in stock but was happy to make another one for me and a couple of weeks later a thin package arrived in the post.

The Jigsaw Puzzle 29 includes a nice white acrylic tray and a sealable plastic bag with 29 jigsaw pieces in it. I was still rather sceptical but I set to. I have only once ever reviewed a jigsaw puzzle and enjoyed that one mainly for the sheer quality of its manufacture. John Rausch has, on several occasions offered me a chance to buy other sublime jigsaws which he acts as a distributor of and one day I will take him up on one of these because of their incredible difficulty as well as sheer beauty.

Now I don't know about you but when I start work on a jigsaw puzzle I separate the pieces by type - corners, edges and middle pieces, so I set about doing this and discovered my first problem:

Huh????

I have studied some Maths in my time (OU maths degree for 7 years of fun) but I definitely cannot consider myself a mathematician like my friend Jim and whilst my studies were a rather long time ago, I am fairly sure that a square does NOT have 5 corners to it! Houston I seem to have a fundamental problem.

Despite this minor(?) setback, I continued in my usual fashion and started working on the edges. This proceeded as one would expect and I did manage to make 2 very nice edges with pieces that fit together perfectly BUT I seem to have found a second problem:

What the @£$% is going on here?

Yes, my nicely assembled edges don't seem to fit inside the tray. YES! I did try the other direction and can assure you that the tray is square! I was beginning to suspect that this puzzle might be beyond me when I looked at the remaining pieces and realised that Houston was trying to get in touch with me - there was a THIRD problem:

I think someone sent me the wrong pieces!

Looking at all the remaining edge pieces (all in the tray in the pic above) it is quite obvious that they are all "female" in form and cannot link together! This is a VERY strange Jigsaw puzzle! AT this point it has occurred to me that maybe it is just a very very difficult packing puzzle where the pieces just need to be stuffed into the tray but not actually interlocked? I started out trying to solve it this way with the pieces just loosely packed together but this really did not seem to be a possible solution as there was not enough space. PLUS, it did occur to me that an incredibly complex packing puzzle with 29 oddly shaped pieces would not win a prize at an IPP.

During the week, after some discussion with the genius, Derek Bosch, about my singular failure to solve a "simple" jigsaw puzzle with only 29 pieces, he let me have the bombshell that his rather gorgeous daughter (age 7!!!!!) managed to solve that puzzle! This made me "rassafrassarickarackets" like Muttley (do you remember that???) and I carried on working on it.

So far, after 3 weeks of working on this blasted award-winning puzzle that a7-year-old can solve, I have singularly failed! I am genuinely no closer to finding the solution than I was when I started!

In desperation, I started work on some wonderful new cubes that I bought from my friend Alfons Eyckmans.

Happiness Cubes - they should make me happy hopefully!

Alfons showed off the Paduak (red) cube on Facebook and after a little discussion, I learned that this was number 169 of the Happiness cubes designed by Japanese puzzle designer, Sekog Yukiyasu. He has produced a huge number of extremely complex interlocking cubes which he published on his website here. There is also a pdf with all of these designs. Interestingly the number 169 is not on the site or pdf and I am not sure where it came from. I had started playing with several of these and on each had found only a move or 2 and then got stuck with nowhere to move. Each evening I tried a few of them in turn and was beginning to wonder whether my puzzle solving days were over? Looking at the cube description for the 9.2 that I was really working on, there is a solution described but for the life of me, I could not make head nor tail of it:

Nope! Not helpful at all!

Every time I lost patience with the Jigsaw puzzle 29, I began again on the Happiness cubes and finally after a week of abject failure, I solved just one cube:

Happiness cube 9.2 finally in pieces

I lurve interlocking cube puzzles and I think that these are amongst the very best! The 9.2 disassembly is level 13.3.2.2.4.1 which doesn't sound like much but the interlocking of the pieces is so incredibly complex that finding even a single move is a huge challenge. Alfons has made these puzzles for me from Oak and they are stunning. I have another 5 to solve and they may well take me a good few weeks or more before I manage them. If you would like to try then Alfons may well make some more or you can buy one of the hardest of them from my friend Rich Gain's Microcubology Shapeways store where he has the Happiness cube #20 up for sale in white nylon. Rich was one of the puzzle friends who really led me astray at the beginning of my Puzzle journey and you can count on him to find a good puzzle!

Thank goodness! At least I finally managed to solve one puzzle in a week - my despair ended in happiness! Now I need to have a breakthrough thought about this damned Jigsaw!!!

Traiphum's Tetrahedral Terror plus Torturing the Mother-in-law!

Three tetrahedra from Traiphum

This will need to be a fairly short blog post this week - my in-laws arrived on Thursday and I have had very little time to myself for writing or puzzling and if I try then I get the evil eye/laser-burning stare from the present ogre erm wife! The girls have just gone out for coffee and shopping (God help me!!) and left the boys at home. The "old boy" has felt the need for a lie down in the afternoon so I have some time for a quickee!

This post is another post about a special twisty puzzle which I have owned for quite a few months and as yet have singularly failed to solve since receiving it in March this year! Traiphum is a master twisty puzzle modder (probably the best in the world) and I have bought quite a few puzzles from him over the last few years and love them all! They are not cheap but the quality is truly amazing - if you do choose to buy from him then you will not be disappointed. He can be easily contacted via his Facebook page or through the Twisty Puzzles forum private messaging service. His specialty is to convert one particular shape of puzzle into another. In the picture at the top of the post are 3 cubes which he has carved and smoothed into perfectly formed Reuleaux tetrahedra. On the left is a 4x4 cube (Megamorphinx) and on the right is a 5x5 (Ultramorphinx) and I hope one day to be able to get a Hexamorphinx too. In the middle is my nemesis!

It's a twofer - puzzling for the family and puzzling for me!

Believe it or not this is my first jigsaw!

My puzzle habit has been a source of hilarity amongst my friends and colleagues for some time! They often wonder whether the present Mrs S and I actually communicate at all and what about. Their vision is of me jingling or rattling away with something annoying and her just glaring at me constantly! Now to a certain extent this is true - she has almost no urge to participate in the puzzling but does actually sort of enjoy the notoriety I have achieved. Occasionally she has been known to solve something but if it takes more than 5 minutes then it get's handed back with a pained expression and the words "show me how it's done" and heaven help me if I try to force her to work on it for longer! If I show her a twisty puzzle then she immediately says they're all the same puzzle and definitely won't touch it.

So I had been wondering if there was any way I could turn some aspect of the puzzle habit into something we can do together. I have never held out any hope for this - even Rox can't really convince "Mr Man" to participate! In fact he only tolerates her habit (which is worse than mine) because she lets him keep "man tools" in the apartment. But I know that it is possible to have puzzling become a family affair when I spoke to my friend Andrew from Singapore (aka Bob Cubes after Bob the Builder). He has convinced his adorable family to join in with his madness and they each worked together to be the first to complete the then record-breaking 24,000 piece jigsaw and documented their achievement here (it has even been hung on the wall of their living room!) Later on they did it again with the current record holding (32,000 pieces) by Ravensberger and documented it here. This one is so huge it comes with a trolley!!

Now there was absolutely no way that I was ever going to attempt one of those monsters! Firstly I don't have the space, secondly I have cats and thirdly "she" would never participate. I also have been scarred for life when, as a child, our family did second hand 10,000 piece jigsaw. It took weeks and weeks, we had to eat on our laps because the dining table was out of commission and at the end of it all there were 3 pieces missing! In fact I have never seriously considered jigsaws much at all despite my current "try just about any puzzle" fetish. My good friend Nigel (the organiser of the Midlands puzzle parties) does do them - in fact he has been working on the 32,000 piece monster for at least 2 years! So I have been thinking that maybe I could give it a try. Then recently Mrs S made me stop cold in my tracks when she asked about doing them and I agreed wholeheartedly and even bought a jigsaw board to store and solve on. But nothing was done about it.