Six Hookers

…from the blokes who brought you The Joy of Hex – it seems fitting!

Back in 2001 Lynn Yarborough’s entry in the IPP Puzzle Design Competition was called Trinity. It consisted of 6 linked square sticks positioned on the diagonal. It was subsequently produced and sold in reasonably large quantities by Bits and Pieces… 

Interestingly, the original patent for the puzzle [US 6,203,015] listed an alternative design with hexagonal sticks rather than square sticks – and the Two Brass Monkeys know hex, so they’ve produced a hex variant of Trinity and called it Six Hookers – obviously they’re fans of crochet.

In its assembled form, the rods are quite solidly held together, albeit there’s a fair amount of wiggle and play available – but in the tradition of some of the very best puzzles, something that feels like it’s about to just fall apart, will resolutely resist any attempts at disassembly.

Fiddle around with it and learn relationships between its bits and you’ll be able to gently take it apart and convince yourself there is indeed no monkey business whatsoever, and you’re dealing with six identical pieces of nicely machined brass.

Assembly is a nice little challenge for the slightly dextrous – it’s not too bad, but you’ll need to respect the rather fine tolerances and keep things neat and tidy if you’re going to stand a chance of getting things back into that loose, but rather-well-held-together assembly you’re aiming for. Along the way you can’t help but admire just how neatly all those tolerances and angles work together to allow you do what you need to…

I may be biased, but I reckon it looks (and works) even better in hex… 

... coming soon to a website near you - some are already out in the wild as the lads made them available at Wil's King's Day Party a couple of weeks ago.