Something old, something new....

Something borrowed, something blue!

No! I have not taken leave of my senses and no! I am not getting married again! I don't think the present Mrs S will let me! I just decided that this might be a nice title to get your attention! I have had rather a lot of puzzle deliveries recently and some are rather special so I thought I would bring a few together into one post.

Hectix revisited

First we start with something old. It's old because I have had it quite some time and because it is based on a very old design.

Cast Helix

Cast Helix

Taking a small break from the Puzzle Master wire puzzles, I decided to go back to one of the Hanayama puzzles. This time it's the Cast Helix. I thought I should work out how to solve this one because a friend of mine at work had been attracted to the shiny metal puzzles as a direct result if playing with some that I had brought in. She had bought the Cast Marble which she has so far dismantled but not reassembled and also bought the Cast Helix. She has spent weeks on this one and gotten nowhere and I knew that I couldn't help her if she asked. So it was time for me to work on it.

The usual black Hanayama box beautifully displays this puzzle. It consists of 2 disks of antiqued brass attached back to back with multiple slots in each. A robust metal helical piece passes through both disks. Size is 4.3 x 6.2 x 6.2 cm with a nice solid feel to it. The helix can be rotated around the disks through the holes that appear as you rotate the 2 disks in each other and can get to more or less any position you might want. The disks have a number of shapes on the surface forming the shape of a logarithmic spiral and some gaps which move as the disks rotate. The aim is to remove the helix from the disks. There looks to be a fairly obvious exit point so what can be so tough that has kept her going for so long?

But remember it is a Puzzlemaster level 9 (Gruelling) or Hanayama level 5/6 so it is certainly not going to be trivial - it should be pretty tough. The reviews on the Puzzle Master page are generally good with the only negative that some force is required for the solution. This idea was confirmed in the review by Gabriel. No solution is provided but it can be downloaded from here.

It ain't wood but I love it

Gordian's Knot

As you have gathered by now, I am hopelessly addicted to everything puzzling. I'll read books about them, I collect them, I photograph them, I write on-line about them, I go to puzzle parties and a lot of my favourite people in the world are puzzle people! However, I particularly love my fine wooden masterpieces! Last weekend I confessed to you that I had spent an absolute fortune on Brian Young's (MrPuzzle) 2012 limited edition burrs. My wooden puzzle collection is my absolute pride and joy.

My pride & Joy!

BUT I do still play with puzzles made of other materials - they tend not to stay on show unless they are made of a lovely material like glass or aluminium (like the puzzles from Wil Strijbos) or they are hand-made with huge amounts of skill like Traiphum's Hexaminx, Megamorphinx & cuboids or the special cuboids I have from Hunter. Most of my plastic and wire puzzles tend to stay put away in a drawer or cupboard and are just brought out when needed. I do enjoy owning them - I can safely take them to work and torture my colleagues with them safe in the knowledge that no-one will break them. I don't have to worry about an orthopod and his hammer!!

But now I have finally found a mass produced plastic puzzle that is going to stay on show and close to hand for the foreseeable future despite looking like a child's toy! Yes this is the Gordian's knot burr puzzle made by the educational toy company - Think Fun.

I had seen pictures of this about for the last year or so and never gotten around to buying it. Partly because it looked so garish and "plasticky" but also because I had been focussing on so many others. But recently Sven from the Twisty puzzles forum wanted to sell off a large part of his collection and amongst those he had on offer was this puzzle - it cost me about €10 which is a bit cheaper than the brand new cost and despite being second-hand it was in pristine condition. It arrived a few weeks ago along with a few twisties and I just got around to it this week.

Derringer

Derringer

After last weeks excitement of a beautiful wooden puzzle made by a newcomer, we are back to a puzzle by the geniuses at Puzzle Master. Having had so much fun with one of their wire puzzles which had a short loop of string within it, the Eagle, I felt inclined and courageous enough to take on another one with string in it (not a long length however. This time it is Derringer - so called because of it's resemblance to the small handgun.

It is a level 10 (out of 10 - Mind Boggling) puzzle which should always give you a small hint of concern but I was on a roll! What could possibly go wrong?? It consists of the gun shaped piece which is effectively one single long looping segment of wire with the ends joined together by a ring. Threaded through that loop is a small section of string ended by 2 large balls. Further confounding the movement is the ring of wire around the string. It is 9.5 x 5.4 cm and like all their own brand puzzles, it is beautifully finished. The puzzle has received an average rating on the Puzzle Master site of 4 stars but this is purely due to one individual marking it down (incorrectly I believe). The other 2 puzzlers found it rather tough but enjoyable (5 stars). As far as I can tell none of the regular puzzle bloggers has reviewed it before.

The instructions given are to remove the string and the ring - and of course, then put it back! There is no solution provided and you may need it - if so, it can be downloaded from here. The puzzler who left a poor review stated:

I solved it quickly, but I felt as if I had forced it, so I spent almost 2 hours looking for a no force no bend solution. I gave up and peeked at the solution only to find that I had done it right all along. Enjoyable, but it should have been better made.

Let me categorically say that I downloaded the solution and whilst it is slightly different to my own approach, there is NO force required and definitely no bending of parts with either solution - I have no idea why they felt this was needed.

A Christmas Wish Come True

5 Special burrs

At the beginning of the year I made a Christmas wish. I was very excited by the thought of Brian Young's limited editions that year and made a wish that I might get them. Well, it has taken me 5 months of saving up and I have finally received them. Let me say that they are stunning! The workmanship is amazing and they are made form some beautiful Australian woods and all contrast nicely with each other. Each has a different idea behind it and none are so difficult as to be impossible by human being (well at least normal humans - maybe Goetz and Aaron can manage to work through a burr with 150+ moves but to date I still haven't managed it without computer assistance!)

What I didn't expect was for them to be soooo big! I was so excited to place the order that I neglected to read the dimensions and got a rather large shock when they arrived and each one is 16cm across in each direction! I may well have some storage problems for a while - some rearranging is required. But they are so attractive that Mrs S actually said that 1 or 2 may be allowed to stay on show in the living room. Wow! So look forward to some reviews of these over the coming weeks!

There will be a proper puzzle review coming this weekend - I have just spent rather a lot of time today admiring my latest swag!!

I am so very proud....

The Block - being given away

To announce that Shane (with my help) has decided who to give the remaining 2 Block puzzles to!

I am also very proud of the amazing community we are a part of. When I announced that there were two more to give away, I was a little worried that I would be inundated with requests all saying "me, me, me!" Yet this did not happen! I did get a good number of requests, but more than half of them were nominating someone else who is prominent in the community or had been helpful to others. The few personal requests were from people who either carry out a huge amount of research into puzzle related subjects and saw it as a means of improving the community's knowledge or they were some of the most major collectors in the world. I am amazed how selfless you all are!

Enough burbling!! Who are the Blocks going to and why?

First of all, Chris Purssell, one of the founder members of the Midlands Puzzle Party group, a major collector and all round good guy who has personally helped Shane with an aberrant Isis puzzle. He does a huge amount to support puzzlers on the revomaze forums too and is well deserving of a special puzzle.

Secondly, a copy will be going to Neil Hutchison of Neil's Puzzling Parts blog fame. We felt that it would be good to send one of them to another country. I had a plee from Nick Baxter (head honcho of the International Puzzle Party) that one go to the San Francisco group of puzzlers for them to explore. We had to agree that there are many there who would appreciate it (including Nick himself). My own feeling was that it would make a great wedding present for Neil from me too.

Congratulations to you both - we will work out how to get it to you soon.

Thank you everyone for being such good sports.

I own "The Block" number 001.....

The Block - Look at the attention to detail!

and you could have one too! More about that later.

This little hobby of mine which has come to take up so much of my spare time and almost all of my spare cash has brought me together with a lot of fascinating people from all over the world. Puzzle solvers, collectors, craftsmen, designers, sellers and even book publishers! I enjoy every aspect of these communications and have kept every single email. Yep! Every one - a total of 1.4GB of emails! This interaction has expanded into Facebook too and I'm sure that Mark Z does not really intend that I use his baby that way. Despite all these conversations through many routes - with many occurring simultaneously I actually only get to meet a tiny proportion of these treasured friends face to face.

Many months ago, Shane, whom I now consider a very good friend, emailed me via my contact page and initially we discussed his puzzling journey with some tiny hints for a couple of puzzles he was stuck on and then suggestions for future purchases and other things to try. I've put him in touch with another friend who was able to help him with another of those blasted non-functioning Sonic Warp puzzles which seem to be all over the place.

Now it turns out that he has trained as a Master wood craftsman and subsequently owns his own business building everything from small home improvements to enormous grand designs specialising in, but not limited to, beautiful wood work. It did not take very much encouragement from me to get him moving from a few ideas he had in his head to an attempt to produce a prototype. We have emailed back and forth over several months sometimes about his creation and sometimes about other puzzles and at one point I put out an email to several other famous puzzle craftsmen asking how they like to finish their wooden puzzles and whilst everyone is different, Shane was able to take their ideas and formulate one that fitted with his puzzle.

The Block is this prototype and I have to say that it is the most beautiful prototype I have ever seen! Despite all the emails, he still kept from me the actual design of the puzzle and so I had no idea what it was like until it arrived on my doorstep 2 weeks ago. I got home from work and, like a small kid, immediately tore into the packaging to find a very nice little surprise:

I love a puzzle with a series of instructions!

The instructions on the Welcome letter said:

CAN YOU BEAT "THE BLOCK"?

001 (Kevin Sadler) 

The Object of the puzzle is to separate the two halves.

Absolutely no or force or banging required 

This is a prototype puzzle, Please handle with care

Good Luck and Enjoy!

April 2013

The Eagle

The Eagle

I apologise that this is a day later than expected but yesterday was the 10th Midlands puzzle party and I was far too busy solving stuff that I can't afford to write a new blog post - but today I am almost recovered and ready to review something new from Puzzle Master.

After my last success with the Cupid's dart puzzle, I thought I would continue my sojourn through Puzzle Master's Wire puzzle collection and take it up a level! I love wire puzzles and seem to have gotten a reputation for being quite good at them, so I thought it was time for another hard one. This one is The Eagle - it is a level 10/10 (Mind Boggling) AND it has string! So can it be time for a failure? But, I'm on a roll, so maybe it can't be as bad as I think it might be!

As usual it is well packaged in a plastic clamshell - I must have filled a landfill site with these by now as I never keep my boxes. I just don't have the storage space for the boxes. The instructions say just to remove the string. It is well anodised and is a fairly complex continuous loop of wire with dimensions 11.2 x 9.8 x 3cm and the loop of orange string is just big enough to fit over the "head and legs" of the eagle. I chose it because it has a fair similarity to the Destroyer puzzle which I enjoyed too and having only a short loop of string, I thought that knotting up was not going to be too much of an issue. None of my fellow bloggers have reviewed this one as yet but the single review on the Puzzle Master page said that the owner really enjoyed it and it took him several months to solve. I was hoping I would not take quite that long! The other big advantage to it was that there are no moving metal parts so no jingling and so no terrible pain in the back of my head from her! No solution is provided but if you want one the n download it from here.

Why Puzzle?

First let me give a small warning! This blog post is rather different to my previous ones. It is a book review and a gratuitous series of photos of some new acquisitions. Read on only if you are really interested and please do Contact me with your thoughts on this subject.

At work (Attending/Consultant anaesthetist in a major teaching hospital) I am well known as the complete nutter that always has some kind of toys on him, always doing or attempting to do something that looks impossible! Plus if I do an operation with a nerve block or spinal anaesthetic then my awake patient can be easily distracted with a puzzle or two. One patient even complained to a colleague when it wasn't going to be me and he wanted a new puzzle to play with during his operation!

Of course, I'm also always handing out my toys to colleagues and friends to challenge them to solve them. Now if I was seen spending my entire time doing Killer Sudoku puzzles then no-one would think anything of it but I am constantly asked why do I do it? Why torture myself so? Why do I continually attempt to do things which look completely impossible? The twisty puzzles like my 3x5x7 cuboid really seem to upset people.

3 of these bottles remain unsolved!!!

Well interestingly, my initial reason for starting to puzzle was to distract my mind from a very nasty event at work more than 2 years ago. The several months with the Revomaze satisfactorily wiped out all my nasty imagery and set me on the straight and narrow but after that, my contact with Rox, Neil, Allard, Oli and the rest of the guys from the Midlands Puzzle Party, ensured that I had gotten thoroughly hooked. From then on, I have continually tried to push myself to collect and solve more and more ridiculously difficult puzzles - you all know this because you have been along for the ride! I must always point out to people that despite owning some beautiful works of craftsmanship from Eric Fuller, Brian Young, Jerry McFarland and Wil Strijbos, some of which have cost me an arm, a leg and a kidney (no-one would take my liver for some reason!) I always want my puzzles to be played with. They are not just for display and collecting, a puzzle is there to be solved - it may take days or months or longer but the aim is to solve them. Some have been on my shelves unsolved for over 2 years!

When questioned about this habit, I began to say to people that Alzheimers runs in my family and I was trying to stave it off! Now to some extent, that is true, it does run in my family but only in the elderly (78+ year old) females on my mother's side. So I'm probably safe for the time being! But this claim did get me thinking - will doing all these puzzles make any difference to the onset of dementia? I really did not know. About a month or so ago a PR agent from Souvenir press contacted me out of the blue via my Contact page and offered to send me a book to review which I thought might just answer this very question. So here is my review of the book - I did not promise the PR agent any particular outome, I just said I'd read it and if suitable post something. Read on if this subject might be of interest to you.

Cupid's Dart

Cupid's Dart

You've probably noticed that I am trying to mix up my expensive craftsman puzzle reviews with the puzzles that everyone can afford. I am doing this in response to the occasional comment I receive that complains that I spend too much time reviewing very expensive puzzles only. I apologise for that and in response I should point out that the puzzles that I am reviewing from Puzzle Master are just as much fun to solve as those from the craftsmen.

Having done a few of the newer Hanayama puzzles, I thought that it was time to go back to some of my beloved wire puzzles. It has been a while since I tried any of these and it was with some trepidation that I rummaged around in my "puzzles to be played with" drawer and pulled out one of the Level 9/10 (Gruelling) wire puzzles. This one is the Cupid's dart and is so called for pretty obvious reasons! I always take a very deep breath to calm my nerves whenever I attempt a wire puzzle that includes a piece of string. My track record of having to cut it or spend hours unraveling knots is not great! I really hesitate to give them to friends to play with because the outcome is almost inevitable!

This one arrives in the usual plastic clamshell with just the instructions to "remove the string". It is nicely anodised and the string is a complete ring which has been heat sealed onto itself which would make it really interesting if you ever decide to cut it to untangle and reform the ring. The ball on the string serves the sole purpose of preventing you feeding it through the tail of the dart. Size is decent at 12.7 x 6.7cm. No solution is provided but if you want one (and at level 9 you might!) the solution can be downloaded from here. It has been reviewed before by Gabriel here. He agreed with the difficulty rating and even felt it might have warranted a 10!!