200 posts - I have been VERY bad!

I really cannot believe it! This is my 200th post and, looking at my analytics data, I should achieve 200,000 page views in the next week or two! Is this a cue for a torrent of mushy nonsense from me? No! Yes! Alright - just a little bit. It hardly seems long ago that I passed the 100 post mark - this time I'm going to be:

"Wondering about wood,

being 'Fuller' it,

admiring the Pelikan,

being amazed at a burl

and finally, going CraaaazyBad with Traiphum"

I've not lost my marbles yet again - it will all make sense soon! Recently I have been buying new toys like there was no tomorrow so basically, to mark this occasion, I thought I would show off a few of the most beautiful and challenging puzzles that have arrived recently and describe my experiences with them. Many are still available for you to add to your collection. Hopefully this catharsis will make me feel better and help Mrs S forgive me!!!

Wood Wonders

Brian Menold is the head honcho at Wood Wonders (actually he's the only honcho) and I have been buying from him for 2 years now - his workmanship has developed during that period until it rivals some of the best in the business and like most (if not all) puzzle people he is a delight to communicate and do business with. During the penultimate sale, due to a quirk with the sales system on his site, I had all the puzzles in my basket snatched from me whilst I used my 2 factor authentication with PayPal - yes Nigel, I hope you feel guilty! As a result of this, he held the one puzzle I had managed to keep and when the next batch came out he contacted me to assure me that I would be able to get those I lost this time. Amongst a decent batch I obtained 3 particularly interesting puzzles from him:

Pyramidal Pile

4 Piece Pyramid

The first 2 are classic designs by Stewart Coffin and are beautifully made. It must be hard enough to make puzzles which are based on a cubic piece, but to make puzzles out of all sorts of other shapes just blows my mind! The pyramidal pile is, gulp, a sort of packing puzzle/construction puzzle. The lovely pyramid (made from Bocote with a Yellowheart tray) can be tipped out to reveal the pieces!

Cast G&G

Cast G&G - sorry it's really hard to photograph!

This may well be a little less lucid than my usual and may be a bit shorter due to fatigue - I spent all day yesterday on-call and writing several rotas too during the day. Unfortunately literally seconds after putting the light out at night, I got called in and had to work half the night. I slept late but an elderly man like me takes a very long time to recover!

Look a wood version!

Back in July I wrote about one of my Puzzle Master acquisitions, I mentioned my dwindling supply. Well I was very bad and placed an order for a whole bunch more so I would have some more reasonably priced puzzles to write about. This one, the Hanayama Cast G&G had been of particular interest to me since it had fascinated me when it won the Jury Grand Prize at the 2012 International Puzzle Party (IPP) in Washington DC for the designer Jin-Hoo Ahn. Firstly, the fact that it had won such a prestigious award really made it stand out and also the fact that it was a member of my beloved disentanglement group (from which you have seen me write so many reviews). Another reason for my fascination is that after discussing it with a friend from across the world, he made a copy for me in wood and sent it to me to play with long before the Hanayama version came available. Solving the wooden version confirmed to me what a great puzzle it is and that I would need to get the metal version too when it came out. He also made me a spare version which I gave to a great friend who organises the Midlands Puzzle Parties - I hope you have enjoyed it Nigel?

As puzzles go, and surprisingly for a Jury grand prize winner, it is not rated as terribly difficult - Hanayama rate it as a level 3 out of 6 and Puzzle Master as 7 (Challenging) in their scale of  5 to 10. Certainly, it is much less difficult than many of their wire and string disentanglements. As with all the Hanayama puzzles, it is beautifully packaged and the puzzle is firmly held onto supporting card to stop it jingling and getting scratched in transit. It is a perfectly portable size at 6  x 4.2  x 2.5 cm and feels nice and solid in the hand. It is a very reasonable $13 in price. Like all the puzzles made by Hanayama, it is beautifully plated in silver and gold metal and the gold piece also seems to be coated in a lacquer. I am not sure of the reason for the lacquer but it is not terribly robust and as you can see from my photos it very quickly chips somewhat spoiling the look (if not the puzzle experience). The instructions are to take it apart and put it back together again (obviously)! There is no solution supplied but it can be downloaded from Puzzle Master here.

A bonus for me - and so for you too!

Jerry's Ball in Cylinder II

I've been trying to keep my blog posting to just one a week so as not to overload you all. But today I received a nice little packet from Allard after his return from the IPP in Japan. It would appear that he had a great time and his exchange puzzle was well received. I know I am eagerly awaiting his and Rox's reviews of the exchange puzzles? This packet contained 2 wonderful goodies: Jerry's Ball in Cylinder II and Allard's own Magic suitcase puzzles.
A few days before the IPP was held, I received an email from Jerry Loo informing me that he had version 2 of his ball in cylinder finished and would appreciate my opinion of it. To save on postage across the world he proposed giving it to Allard who he would be meeting at the IPP so Allard could bring it back in his luggage. After a short humorous exchange about luggage allowance during which it would appear that either he had paid for many Kg of extra weight or, more likely, he had forgone any change of clothing and just taken empty suitcases! Can anyone report on how Allard smelled after several days of puzzling?

Eric Fuller! You are N times a genius!

Truly beautiful! From Eric Fuller

Idiot Alert!

I humbly stand corrected by my friend and fellow puzzle blogger, Tom Cutrofello! In my breathless delight at the genius craftsmanship of Eric I really did not adequately attribute the brilliant designers. Here is what Tom wrote:

"Go Pit and Bill are the design genii, Eric is the master craftsman! Amazing collaboration that would have been almost impossible before the IPP and the Internet. The puzzles are going to become even more elegant. We live on the golden age of mechanical puzzle world!"

Thanks for reminding me of my foolishness! Where would we be without the designers? I maintain that Eric is also a genius but I mustn't forget who enabled his genius. Apology over! Can I put my flagellation device (whip) away now?

Now those of you who are friends on Facebook will have seen that I have been making a very good attempt at bankrupting myself over the last few months! There just seems to have been a constant stream of absolutely fabulous puzzles coming out from all the puzzle designers and craftsmen. This is not just the wonderful wood workers but also the fantastic Chinese twisty puzzle makers who have made loads and loads of new twisties that are "absolutely essential" for my puzzling health!

Drool!

Double Drool!!!

It doesn't stop there either - there's also the fantastic twisty modders and Shapeways designers also keeping me sane .....! Yeah! really!

My original 3x5x7. New 5x7x9 (Traiphum) and 4x6x8 (Jeremy)

But despite all this, I have really been getting in to the N-ary group of puzzles and have been adding lots and lots of them to my collection. I established in my last blog post about them that there can never be too many of them in your collection and my aim would be to get a set as good as that of Dr Goetz Schwandtner. I am still a long way away from that but am certainly adding to my collection at an alarming rate - please don't anyone tell the present Mrs S how much they cost! No-one would even find my body!

Yin Yang Disentanglement

Helical burr

I've been a bit delayed recently due to work commitments and Mrs S going off up to Edinburgh to visit her parents meaning more chores for me to do! I've also not wanted to put out too much stuff when the deluge from the IPP is going to be out soon! First of all may I give my hearty congratulations to Derek Bosch for winning the Jury Grand prize in the design competition with his marvellous Helical burr which I gushed about here.

Jean Claude Constantin - Yin Yang

This week's post is about a disentanglement puzzle that I had thought was particularly attractive and involving string, I thought it would be a real challenge. I also would like to get more puzzles by the amazing and prolific Jean-Claude Constantin. This is the Yin Yang disentanglement puzzle (not to be confused with the puzzle of the same name made by Puzzlemaster that I reviewed here). It was originally rated as a level 8 on their difficulty scale of 5-10 and that was a major attraction for me - I was really hoping for a string puzzle that wouldn't hurt my head too much! Subsequent feedback from me has led to it being re-rated as a 5 (Easy) and is certainly good for beginners to this type of puzzle.

It is made from a nice quality anodised wire and a decent string with a bead on the end and arrived in just a small plastic bag with the name of the puzzle typed on a label. Certainly a decent quality and in size it is 6.2 cm in diameter and the bead makes it about 2cm thick. It is extremely cheap for such nice quality at only $5. The name is obviously related to the soothing Yin yang symbol it forms and it's not difficult enough to upset your inner peace! I haven't seen any other reviews of it anywhere and no one has commented on the PuzzleMaster page. Interestingly there is no downloadable solution on the solution site either but don't let this put you off! You really will not be needing it!

How many more N-ary puzzles do you need?

Just "N" more!

Today I want to tell you about some of my all time favourite puzzles - they combine maths, beautiful wood and puzzling. I want to start with a classic puzzle which has recently become available again and I think you should really consider picking up a copy. Following that I'll show you a few others in my collection.

Hexadecimal puzzle

Here you can see a brand new production of the Hexadecimal puzzle. The puzzle was originally made for one year only in 1986 by Binary Arts (now called Thinkfun). In that year 7500 were produced and only about 750 are estimated to still exist, most firmly in the hands of puzzle enthusiasts/collectors. They seldom come up for sale and command very silly prices. My good friend Michel has been searching for one for years and only recently managed to get hold of one. 

Presented beautifully!

He informed me that Dave Janelle of Creative Crafthouse has obtained permission to produce a limited run (max 190 copies) of this fantastic puzzle for us dedicated puzzlers. He has made them beautifully in Cherry and they are pretty much identical to the original. They are engraved, numbered and presented beautifully in a lined presentation box. The documentation includes that which came with the original puzzle. I managed to get number 6 which is the first to go to the public and can absolutely vouch for the quality and the puzzle enjoyment. They are available here for a very reasonable price.

It was designed and patented by William Keister (1907–1997) in 1986.  William was an engineer in the famous Bell Laboratories and one day he raided the Bell Labs’ stock room, gathering up pushbuttons, electronic relays, and light bulbs to build an electronic version of the Chinese Ring Puzzle.  After a few hours work, he realized he had wired it up wrong, but studying what he had done he also realized he had stumbled upon a whole series of binary code sequence puzzles, of which the famous Chinese Rings Puzzle was just one variation.  He went on to sketch out a whole series of logic puzzles and show how they could be solved mathematically with Boolean algebra, a precursor to today’s computer languages.

It consists of a sliding carriage and a stationary base.  The carriage is fitted with 8 rectangular switching bars which can pivot on their centres to angle in either of two directions.  The base, which holds the carriage during the puzzle’s operation, is fitted with an assembly containing 4 blocking keys. These keys can be present into any one of 16 positions. The object is to remove the carriage which contains the 8 switching bars.  By setting the 4 the blocking keys in various initial configurations, there are 16 puzzles to solve ranging from fairly easy (8 moves for position 1111) to extraordinarily difficult (170 moves for position 1110). It has been analysed (just like most mathematically based puzzles by Jaap here. Let me say that whilst I love Gray code puzzles and find most of them fairly easy, this is really taxing me! I have only done the first 6 so far and am very much enjoying it - you should really consider getting a copy because once this run is over, it is highly unlikely that they will ever be made again!

Here is Dave introducing this puzzle:

If you do own an original or buy one of Dave's excellent copies then it would be a great idea to enter your name onto the Hexadecimal hall of fame which is being kept for the world by Richard Whiting. See the list of owners here and toward the bottom of the page he has a link to email him to inform him of your acquisition. Richard also has an info page about these puzzles here.

Are there any other N-ary puzzles I can recommend whilst I am writing about the Hexadecimal? Indeed there are lots and many are available easily - read on:

Man Of War

Man of War

Time again to review one of my dwindling supply of puzzles from Puzzle Master - I am going to have to order some more very soon. This time it is a nice, rather complex looking, wire disentanglement from their own brand disentanglement selection. They have an enormous selection of these and it is my aim to work my way through the whole lot if possible just as I did with the set I got a few years ago from Livewire puzzles. Puzzle Master's set is rather more extensive and so this will take some time but, never fear for your intrepid blogger's sanity, that went a very long time ago and there's nothing further to be lost! So I will keep plugging away at them as a public service for you.

The Man of War puzzle was given it's name because of it's resemblance to a Jelly fish and that it is supposed to have a sting in its tail! The puzzle arrived as is usual in the standard Puzzle Master clamshell plastic packaging and the picture on the cardboard insert said simply to try and remove the string loop from the bottom of the Jellyfish (i.e. take the sting out of the tail). The loop of string has a large ball on it to stop it from being fed completely through the loops in the wire. It is rated as a 10 (Mind Boggling) on the Puzzle Master 5-10 scale. This is the hardest level and so you should be afraid (very afraid)! .....Or should you? I actually would not rate this one quite that high - I reckon it's a 9! There's no solution supplied with it but it can be downloaded from their website here. Anyone who is well practiced at this type of puzzle should not need the solution but any newbie foolish enough to try may well find themselves requiring it. As far as I can tell none of the other bloggers have reviewed it and there is only a single review on the product page giving it 5 stars and saying how challenging they found it. I also would give this a 5 star review.

Is it a "H"eavenly burr?

Improved H burr aka H Box burr from MrPuzzle

About a month ago I reviewed one of Brian Young's 2012 limited editions the L burr! I started with that one because a friend had suggested that the way it interlocks and the rotations in it are very counterintuitive and difficult to find. I am also a sucker for contrasting woods so the L burr was the start of my journey and what a way to start!

Now I'm going to write a little about the continuation of my journey - I have been pacing myself with this set because they were so much money that I really don't want to rush through the whole lot in one go! The next beauty for me to try was the Improved H burr which could also be called the H box.

Now before all of you who know me whinge to me that:

"You don't collect boxes so you shouldn't have bought this one and therefore you must give it to me!"

I must tell you all that this is a burr and NOT a box and I feel I need to own just a few boxes so I can understand other puzzlers. I am happy to get the majority of my fix on boxes at the Midlands puzzle parties but there are one or two boxes that I just have to own! Just for "completeness"!

A public service announcement

Please show some support to a good puzzling friend.

Updated 2022 - he left and is back! 

Visit his new YouTube channel

Help him out with a little coffee

Buy puzzles at your usual sites and give him a little boost (HKNowstore or Cubezz)

I have only been twisty puzzling for about a year now and am finally getting confidant enough to approach new and really tough puzzles myself without help. One of the essential sites that I visit regularly for help is owned by Rline from the Twisty Puzzles forum. Recently after a crisis of confidence, he came very close to stopping everything and removing all his invaluable information from the Internet. I am glad to say that myself and another TP member talked him out of this drastic move and have provided motivation to continue.

His site is not about speed cubing! He's a man about my age and is far too old to be memorising hundreds of algorithms and doing a cube in 15 seconds! His site and YouTube channel is about twisty puzzles in general including reviews and unboxings, horror stories of mammoth solves (you really must read it!) and, most importantly, techniques. What he really does specialise in is teaching how to solve many different puzzles from the simplest to the most difficult in the world using only a small handful of very simple techniques. Originally he used ONLY the 2 algorithms from Marshall's Ultimate Solution but latterly has expanded this just a bit which I think is a huge improvement.

So I would suggest you all:

1. visit his site, Twistypuzzling, and subscribe

Please show some him some support, we don't want to lose one of the best puzzle resources on the Internet and if you're not currently into twisties despite my beginners suggestions then maybe he can convince you!

 

Cast S & S

Cast S & S

This will be the last of my current batch of Hanayama puzzles that I got from Puzzle Master - Sigh! There have been a few new ones recently which I am definitely going to have to order because I just can't resist their shininess as well as the really really high quality puzzling they provide. This time I'm reviewing the Cast S&S, a really great puzzle designed by the amazingly prolific Nob Yoshigahara.

I had tried this at work many months ago when a friend whom I have infected with the puzzling habit showed it to me. I did manage to solve his copy eventually but didn't really understand what I had done and certainly did not spend enough time to understand its subtleties. I do remember that it was one of the most attractive I had seen and was very tactile - so of course, it had to be added to my collection! As usual, it arrived beautifully displayed in the black Hanayama box with the puzzle tied to card to stop it rattling around. After extrication you are presented with a really lovely pair of pinky copperish metal S shapes which are interlinked. One of which has the name Hanayama on it - pay attention to that because you are going to need to use the lettering to keep track of the movements. It is a level 3 out of 6 on the Hanayama scale and 7 (Challenging) on Puzzle Master's scale. I initially thought this was too high but revised that after watching a few others attempt it. The box gives a bit of blurb about originating in 19th century Britain but ultimately the important instructions are simply to take it apart and then put it back together again.

It is nicely made with no surface scratches and is smooth and cool to touch. Dimensions are 11.1 x 2.9 x 2.9 cm. It has been reviewed favourable before by Gabriel here and Brian here and on the webpage for the puzzle on the Puzzle Master site it has received pretty much universal good reports (apart from someone who thought it was too easy). No solution is provided but it can be downloaded from here.