It feels like ages since I’ve sat down and jotted off a
quick blog post… hopefully with the imminent completion (of my part at least)
of my recent mammoth project, I’ll find a bit more time to write these things
again…
OK, so what do we have for you today?
This puzzle
resulted from a Swiss company’s desire for a puzzling gift to give away to their
customers. Wil spotted the possibilities in making a variant of his original aluminium
Cross puzzle and giving it a nice red stand – et voila instant Swiss flag! The company wanted their give-aways to
be “accessible” to non-puzzlers, so Wil set about coming up with a reasonably straight-forward
design… and ended up finalising the design while he was visiting his sweetheart,
so he named it after her with a nod to the Swiss company who’d commissioned it…
…but that’s not Wil’s style – knowing that he’d end up
selling some of them to puzzlers as well, he also produced the puzzlers’ version…
and while it looks similar to the Swiss giveaway, this one is for hardened
puzzlers only…
At first glance it might look a bit like his old aluminium Cross
puzzle – similar size, also made of aluminium… then you spot the little windows
on the ends of the arms… behind which appear to be some brass bits and a few
ball bearings… at which point you may think you recognise this trick, set it
down on a horizontal surface and give it a spin expecting the pieces to
magically separate once Mr Centrifugal does his thing… but it doesn’t.
If anything, the pieces seem even more solidly locked
together…
OK, so we need a different strategy – we look carefully at one of
the ends – we notice there’s a hole in the centre of the brass bit behind that window, and
occasionally one or two of the balls disappear down the hole, except for some
reason they seem very unwilling to head into that hole – which is weird, right?
…and I’ll leave it there for now… you should enjoy this on your own...
The easier version has far fewer bits to wrangle and they’re
far more cooperative… but you’ll never get to see one of those unless you
happen to be a customer of that particular Swiss company, so you may as well
make peace with wrangling multiple little thingies all with an apparent mind of
their own…
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjERSAGsr9HGWYU4uJZsV_6i7h6x1MgbPOYBR1WiTGy9MEVNhJGr6t7UXO7F0nFdOIUvt_AteDZnMjBP_7YuwT5LeJ132F0lv4K1diJCv-jIJist8a0XkeNU_f6tXTw523XFtc6jx129-ql/s320/AW_Puzz_Cat-1493_edited-1.jpg)
There’s
a great “A-Ha!” moment when you work out what you’re trying to achieve … and
then another when you work out how the heck to actually do that!
If you’ve ever liked any of Wil’s other designs, you’ll love
this one!
Hallo Mr. Walker,
ReplyDeletethanks for Your blog!
My Cousins friend is a switzerland. Do You know where I can buy a sweta cross for a present for him or for which company this is build?
Thanks and best regards
Thomas
Hi Thomas - your best bet is to drop Wil Strijbos an email and ask if he has any copies left for sale... his email address is puzzle{DOT}strijbos{AT}wxs{DOT}nl. - allard
DeleteIs this able to be put back together and solved again?
ReplyDelete...yes, infinitely many times! :-)
Delete