Tea Box Puzzle

John Devost ran an interesting auction on Puzzle Paradise a little while back offering twenty Tea Box Puzzles jointly made by Robert Yarger and Kelly Snache. I was delighted when I received the usual notification from John’s auction site telling me I’d secured one of the boxes, and even more delighted when I received an email from Robert saying that the auction software had confused itself a bit with the sort of auction being used and I’d actually paid a lot less than the initial email had suggested - bonus!

The auction described the Tea Box as a real olde worlde wooden tea box that has been retro-fitted with a puzzle mechanism – as is Kelly’s usual want. He uses a lot of reclaimed timber, boxes and the like to create his rather unique puzzles. He stumbled across a collection of these boxes and snapped up the lot of them, certain that he’d find something interesting to do with them ... some have already turned up as puzzles (Granny’s Tea Box) and hopefully more will follow. They’re fairly small, very rustic (the insides haven’t been sanded, at all) and as per the auction description, “ooze charm”! The Tea Box Puzzle has a sliding lid that is firmly locked in place and has a loop of string coming out of one end with a gold tag hanging from it.  

A week or two later the postie left a box on the doorstep and I was off and playing. 

In the meantime I’d chatted with a mate about his Tea Box and he’d mentioned that he’d had a bit of a mishap with it and was planning to get hold of Robert to ask about fixing it ... and I’d also read Jeff’s blog post about his experiences with his Tea Box – so I’d been forewarned to be careful with it when it arrived. 

On the first evening I had a bit of a tentative play around with it and opened the first lock and started playing with the second. I picked it up again while I was having breakfast the next morning and started fiddling with the string, and before I knew it, I’d done what everyone else has done and locked it up for good. I jotted off a quick apologetic email to Robert and asked if I could have some instructions on fixing it – and by the time I got home from work, I had chapter and verse on how to fix it along with a couple of useful pictures from Robert.

Unlocking the box from that state required a couple of improvised tools and a total of around five minutes to effect the entire repair ... I’ve put a drop of superglue on the knot in the string now, and I reckon that will stop a repeat of my little mishap. [Word to the wise out there: if you have one of these, and haven’t already done so, put a spot of superglue on that knot! You’ll thank me later.] 

In the course of the repair I intentionally removed a stopper on the lid so that it will now slide all the way off – to allow puzzlers to see the mechanisms inside there ... there’s one little item in there that deserves to be on show, and if you don’t break your box like I did, it will never see the light of day, and that’s a shame, in my view...

Nobody likes to have a puzzle box break on them (and some of us dread having to try and fix them due to our lack of woodworking skills!) but I think I can honestly say that it hasn’t reduced my enjoyment of this little box at all – in fact I really think the final result allows for even more enjoyment ... 

Thanks guys – great first project and thanks for the tea bags you left inside the box! I’m really looking forward to seeing what the duelling duo produce next!

My Butter

I suspect that I have a soft spot for cute, unloved puzzles – or that’s how I think I explain how I ended up buying My Butter off a recent Cubic Dissection auction. Halfway through the auction I noticed a few puzzles hadn’t attracted any bids yet, despite their starting bids being well below their current price (and indeed recent auction prices!) – so I found myself placing some modest bids on a few apparently unloved puzzles … it turned out soon afterwards that most of them weren’t nearly as unloved as I thought they were, and I was soon outbid – but one or two remained relatively unwanted and I was able to pick up a bargain or two – one of them was this really cute little cow called “My Butter” by Yoh Kakuda of the Karakuri Creation Group.

My Butter was originally produced in this blonde version as a 2008 Karakuri Christmas Present. It has subsequently been produced as a brown cow with white spots, and in fact remains generally available today.

My cow had a bit of a mishap in transit, losing her head somewhere over the Atlantic – fortunately the head isn’t critical to the mechanics, so I was able to repair it (and by repair, I really mean glue the thing back on!) with even my meagre woodworking skills.

As a puzzle, it’s pretty straight-forward – in fact you can probably guess what you’re going to need to do by just looking at a picture of the (unsolved) cow. It is however rather nicely made – what it may lack in detail, it more than makes up for in terms of quality finish and fit – definitely up to the usual Karakuri standards! 

The locking mechanism does have a few little tricks up its sleeve that will slow down anyone not paying attention for at least a little while, and it does require a little coordination. Releasing the locks allows the belly to drop out exposing the little box (butter dish?) inside … one of the bonuses of this puzzle are that the internal mechanism is fully exposed in the solved position, allowing you to see that the finish on the internals is just as good as on the externals. [Most of the other Karakuri boxes I’ve seen leave the internals somewhat hidden, even when the box is opened, so this is a nice treat, I think.] 

Locking up the box is a simple matter of sliding the belly back into the beast – and the internals take care of everything for you … neat!

William’s Wonder

I picked up a lovely copy of William’s Wonder from Kayleb’s Corner earlier this year and I’ve been meaning to write about it for ages. This 4*4*4 cube was designed by William Waite and I’m pretty sure that this example was made by Pelikan. It looks like a nice honest cube, although some of the shapes around the outside suggest that it’s going to be at least a little unusual. 

Finding the first piece that moves is fairly easy – prodding and poking around randomly will eventually identify a piece that slides upwards (identifying the single void in the cube, in case you’re interested). From there, noting what’s moved you should be able to work out what should move next, right? After all, if this is a serially interlocking cube, then it must point you in the right direction ... except it doesn’t seem to! You can see where you’ve opened up a gap – you know the next move must then use that gap, but all the pieces around the gap don’t appear to move ... ratfink!

Sneaky chap that Waite guy – the way he’s designed the pieces, you’re virtually assured that for the first while you’re going to be tugging on either ends of the same piece, or trying to push two bits of the same piece toward one another ... and the crafty chaps who made this puzzle have added another layer to that by deliberately throwing you off the scent in the way that they’ve chosen to align (or not align!) various blocks that form the individual pieces.

Right, so once you manage to get over the not-so-obvious (to me, at any rate!) pitfalls and find the second move, you can expand the five bits of the cube until the fifth move allows you to remove your first piece. 

I know that I’m relatively new to these sorts of puzzles, but the designers’ ingenuity really amazes me – how they can come up with such unique, complicated interlocking schemes within the confines of a 4*4*4 cube is impressive. 

William’s Wonder is a delightful cube that draws you in by giving you a really simple, easy to find first move and then holds you hostage for ages while you try and find the second move ... highly recommended, if you can find one!

Melting Block Puzzle

The classic packing puzzle?

When Louis came over for MPP3, he gave me a copy of this classic packing puzzle designed by Tom O'Beirne – I’m not sure who made this copy, but I suspect that it came via a Dutch Puzzle Purveyor of note by the name of Wil. I really like this version as the extra block masquerades as a handle for the sliding lid on the box when in the unsolved state. 

The premise is pretty simple: you get a box with a sliding lid that has a wooden block incorporated into the lid. Inside the box, there are eight blocks of differing sizes that pretty much fill the box – your mission – should you choose to accept it not wimp out – is to put all nine blocks inside the box such that the lid can still be closed.

Your first reaction is more than likely going to be something like mine was: Clearly there’s been some sort of mistake here! There’s no place inside the box – let alone enough space to fit another block the same size as the smallest block already in there! Ah wait a minute – I’m just seeing the top layer – there are probably some gaps in the bottom layer, so tip the pieces out carefully and observe. Nope, I was right the first time – there must be some sort of mistake here because the bottom layer is as tightly packed as the top layer ... time to Think(c) [Revomaze forum in-joke – sorry, couldn’t resist!] 

OK, engage brain and step up the mental processing a couple of gears – notice that there’s a little bit of play around the edges when the pieces are in the box – and there’s a tiny difference in height between some of the pieces in the unsolved state in the box  ...  at least some of which is disguised by the slight bevelling on the edges of the blocks – sneaky! 

Closer inspection shows that some of the things that look like they share the same dimensions, don’t– but they literally differ by mere millimetres - and yet that’s the key to the solution. It turns out the starting position is rather a sloppy fit compared to the solution – even though it looks quite snug. 

 

A bit of experimentation with the various bits will show you which combinations are the most ‘efficient’ and extending that gives you a pretty neat solution – that really will allow the ninth block to visibly melt into the box that was ‘full’ when it had eight blocks in it at the start. 

A classic puzzle that verges on proving the impossible ... thanks Louis!

Triplets

I managed to pick up a couple of relatively modest unusual puzzles on the latest round of Cubic Dissection auctions. One of them was a very plain looking puzzle designed by Jim Gooch called Triplets. This particular one was made in Zebra Wood by Puzzlecraft. 

Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair by calling it plain-looking – but it looks like a simple common-or-garden three piece burr. However, there’s a clue in the name to the fact that this one’s a little different, and a quick glance over at Puzzles will be played – confirms that this puzzle consists of three identical pieces with a rather unconventional shape. 

The oddly shaped pieces are totally disguised when the puzzle is assembled, leaving an unwary puzzler spending half their time pulling or pushing pieces against themselves – evil grin ...

In terms of burr- complexity, this one is about as simple as they get – two moves to remove the first piece and there are only three pieces anyway – but the shape of the pieces will throw anyone who hasn’t seen one of these before off the scent for quite a while ... really cute little puzzle for amusing folks who think they’ve seen one of these before... 

MPP3 - That was fun!

Sunday saw the third in our incredibly informal Midlands Puzzle Parties at our place... yet again we had ideas of having someone present a talk (heck, we even had a volunteer for that!), doing a round-the-table chat about puzzles (what was your first puzzle, favourite puzzle, most expensive puzzle etc.) – having a bit of a competition (for REAL prizes!) and all of that came to nought as we just descended into chatting and puzzling – all day! ...and it was good!

 

I collected Louis from the airport hotel first thing in the morning – 09:30 – it was a Sunday after all and Nigel and Chris arrived soon after we got back to the house and helped set up. The rest of the gang duly started arriving and by about 11am we had 13 hardened puzzlers gathered around a couple of tables outside on the deck – unpacking their respective boxes / carrier bags of treasure – much to my dogs’ delight – although I don’t think we actually lost any puzzles to a canine all day... 

  

All the regulars managed to come along (Oli, Ali, Chris, Nigel, Karl & Louis) and it was great to have Helen (Chris’ far better half!) there as well as some new faces (but well known names) off the Revomaze forum (Kevin, Graham, Bruce & Shaun) and Richard Gain –aka Microcubology Man. 

Mark76 donated a pile of Revomaze goodies (mouse mats, mugs and coasters) featuring his incredible graphic design skills – most were snapped up rather quickly and Chris won himself a magic Revomaze mug for posting the second-fastest Revomaze Blue opening time at 20 seconds ... Nigel had done it in 17 seconds and we’d more or less abandoned the competition shortly after I failed to open it at all (the meat was burning!). When Nigel dashed out the door in the afternoon on his way to a concert he disqualified himself and we crowned Chris the fastest hands in the Midlands (or something like that!). 

Mark had also shipped 4 mini Revomazes down for a bit of a show and tell – he’d made up mini Revo’s each of which has a nod to its namesakes’ features – and sent us a Blue, Green, Bronze and Silver to try out and give him some feedback... several hours into the day, not a single person had managed to open one yet – which I think gives Mark one part of his answer: “They’re non-trivial!” to use a mathematical understatement. During the latter part of the afternoon there was a more concerted effort that saw three of the four being opened – Bronze is still holding its secrets ... but I’m hoping to have a play with them before they get shipped northwards once more ... I have to add one little bit in here – anyone who’s played with a Silver Revomaze knows about the “not-a-canyon” ... well Mark has engineered one into his tiny scale Revo-silver – masterful Mark, masterful! 

Richard Gain kindly bought along a little stock from his Shapeways / Etsy shops and spent quite a while demonstrating various puzzles to interested onlookers – Helen seemed to be doing quite well on a few on them. Quite a few of us came away with some of his little Microcube puzzles – at one point he was even dishing out samples of a three-piece 4*4 cube puzzle that was only 15mm cubed – and its cube-lets are all hollow with the skinniest walls you’ve seen, yet it’s easily strong enough to be a perfectly serviceable puzzle – this 3D printing stuff is phenomenal...

Ali gave everyone a wood and rope puzzle he’d knocked together on Thursday evening (!) – One solver so far...? (Nope, not me!) 

Another great aspect of this meeting was that some of our number are now bringing along their own creations and getting plenty of encouragement form the others - keep it up guys!

 There seemed to be plenty of new high-end puzzles around – quite a few new Japanese puzzle boxes, there were four of Kagen  Schaefer’s new Maze Burrs there and a Tom Lensch version being played with,  a couple of folks had a (figurative!) bash at the Opening Bat and there were plenty of folks drooling over Scott Peterson’s Coffins. Phil Tomlinson’s Always Empty Box stumped a few seasoned puzzle box veterans for a while, but the one that stumped most of the people most of the time was the Karakuri Box with a tree... (and yes I count myself in there). Excellent mechanism...  Eric Fuller’s Wonder Bars were a big hit as well...

We started out with a table full of help-yourself-stuff courtesy of several attendees (you know who you are – thank you!), and although folks did help themselves, we somehow ended up with more than we started with... so we’ve a healthy start for next meeting’s Box o’ Bounty...

As always, there was one special moment this time around that will go down in the legend of MPP – thanks to Shaun for this gem: he’d been fiddling with a pair of YOTs and not having a lot of success when “all of a sudden” it literally exploded showering pins, rings, a coin and ball bearings everywhere – Shaun gets this “What did I do wrong?” look on his face and Oli peers across and remarks “I’ve never seen a YOT taken apart quite like that before...” – vintage! 

Thanks for the chocolates, flowers, wine and puzzles – Gill and I are still negotiating over who gets what!

All in all, we had a great day – good company, lots of puzzles and (even though I say so myself) good grub! It was great expanding the circle a bit this time and meeting new puzzlers – hopefully they’ll come back again next time, and maybe even bring a friend...Thanks to all of you that made MPP3 such a great day - allard

Quadlock 1

I’ve written about Jerry McFarland’s puzzles a couple of times before. Not only does he produce Bill Cutler’s puzzles superbly, but he also designs and makes his own puzzles. His website lists a couple of really interesting-looking puzzles, sadly not all of them are generally available. 

Nick Baxter’s latest auction included a couple of these hard-to-come-by puzzles including one of Jerry’s Quadlock 1 puzzles. That piqued my curiosity, so when Jerry’s website announced that he’d be making a new run of Quadlock 1’s in a slightly smaller size, my email to Jerry asking for one was into the ether in minutes ... and a little while later Jerry got in touch and offered me a slight variant for a few dollars extra, so a Walnut, Maple and Cardinal Wood Quadlock arrived in the puzzle cave.

Jerry designed the Quadlock 1 in 1992 and describes it as a 19-piece puzzle that’s difficult to take apart. It takes the form of a slightly squashed cube and it’s pretty clear from the get-go that it consists of a seriously interlocked set of unusually shaped pieces. 

Starting to play around with it you will quickly gravitate toward the four central pieces that seem to have a reasonable amount of vertical play, although playing with them doesn’t seem to do an awful lot ... a bit of experimentation and feeling your way around in the dark leads to some interesting discoveries, and I have to say that the first move caught me out quite a bit in that things didn’t move the way I’d expected them to – nice one Jerry!

The first moves will let you remove a few pieces, but then you need to execute a couple more nifty moves before the next few pieces can be removed, effectively then leaving you with a core and a framework made up of a number interlocking pieces. When I complimented Jerry on the design of the framework, he deflected most of the blame / credit to Bill Cutler for that particular element of the design. 

It’s a great design with one or two little red herrings to amuse the unwary (No, I’m not going to mention those, find them yourself!) and Jerry’s precision makes stumbling across the first part of the solution by accident virtually impossible, while rewarding the careful explorer with plenty of feedback.  

Nice one Jerry! Thanks for making another run of a great design and thanks for my ever-so-slightly unique variant ... looking forward to Quadlock 4 now...

Cocobolo Maze Burr

...sailing toward Split...

One of the web-sites I enjoy looking through from time to time is Kagen Scheafer’s – and a while go he said he’d be making another round of his rather well-received Maze Burrs (the one that won the IPP Puzzle Design Competition in 2006) – this time around in Cocobolo, Ebony and Holly wood.

Within a day or two my puzzle-mate Nigel had pulled a group of us together for a bulk order from Kagen and took care of all the arrangements. A few weeks later Kagen let us know that the puzzles were on their way and they duly arrived at Nigel’s place. The timing was a bit unfortunate and all our carefully laid plans of getting together for a grand ritual joint opening (unveiling, as opposed to solving – some of us are a bit slower than the others!) of the puzzles got blown to heck because Nigel was about to go away for the weekend and I was about to disappear on a 2 week cruise – but I did manage to play with it a bit and take some pics before I got on the boat, so here are some thoughts and some pics to show off Kagen’s incredible handiwork. 

The Maze Burr is basically a cube with a pair of wooden plates on each face: a Holly plate with a square Ebony pin and a Cocobolo plate with a maze cut into it – the sets of plates engage into an Ebony framework that allows the two plates to move at 90 degrees to one another (maze / pin plate permitting, of course). The edges also interfere with one another depending on how they are positioned. The way the internal frame is designed, there’s space in there for an extra six maze plates ... two of the maze plates have an extra channel cut in them to allow the plate to be slid all the way on or off - depending on which maze plates are used, and how they’re oriented relative to one another, you can either give yourself a pretty simple challenge, or a really tough challenge. 

It’s all in the details – I’ve already mentioned that the maze pins are square – and in fact all of the mazes are cut with square corners – now I’m no craftsman, but I suspect that that little detail added significantly to the complexity of making up these guys. On the back of the Holly plates, Kagen’s added a cork pad so that the back of the Holly plates don’t scrape against the Maze plates not currently in use ... and at the same time provide the right amount of pressure to keep the maze pin properly engaged ... it’s all in the details – very nice work. 

Kagen provides a booklet with each puzzle that not only gives a brief history of the puzzle but also a number of suggested constructions along with their solutions courtesy of John Rausch.

I’m not sure if he’s done this with all of the puzzles in this batch, but mine arrived well and truly locked up in a configuration that requires 89 moves to solve. Nice guy, Kagen!

I’m looking forward to experimenting, as I reckon that’s where a puzzler can really have a lot of fun coming up with new and interesting constructions and solutions (requiring anywhere between 7 and 116 moves to open, or close) – the good thing is that because you effectively have to lock up the puzzle from an open position, you know that any configuration that you can close up, you can definitely re-open again. (I always worry about locking up a puzzle unintentionally and then ending up with an expensive paper weight!)

... Kagen still has some for sale over here if you're tempted ...

Exploding Cube

...while running with the donkeys 

 

I’ve been meaning to pick up one of these little guys for a while now. I first saw them in wood in Grand Illusions (where it’s known as Trisected Cube) and I’d seen a metal Bits and Pieces version on the net, but when one of Wil Strijbos’ regular newsletters said he had some for sale I dived in straight away. 

It’s pretty straight-forward as a puzzle – three similar interlocking pieces intertwined to form a cube – but the charm is all in the way that it does that. It’s a simple, pure coordinated motion puzzle – as you unfold the three pieces at the same time, the cube expands to the point where the pieces separate.

Each piece interlocks with the other two in a beautifully complicated way. The edges join up and mate together in interesting patterns that seem to have only one purpose – to entertain. It’s neatly made and looks great.

[The donkey reference? ... we were in Santorini yesterday ... and walked up the steps to Fira ... ]