A Bolt from the BLUE

Ali Morris’ 2023 exchange puzzle was a new bolt puzzle – a big old man-sized bolt with a brass washer on it - it had to be brass, didn't it! Your goal, as usual with Ali’s bolts, is to remove the washer…

This one comes in a handy 3D printed carrier that makes it look a little sinister – almost hand grenade-ish… retrieving the bolt from the carrier is almost trivial – spoiler alert – the base unscrews – presenting you with the full metallic glory of Ali’s latest little torture device…

I exchanged this for some of my Think Sticks in Jerusalem and had a few plays with it while I was still in Israel – getting absolutely nowhere…

Back in Blighty, I spent some more time on it and began to reassess my approach several times over the next few months as I managed to thoroughly fail to solve it.

Apart from the tiniest bit of play in the nut securing the washer on the outside, I couldn’t find anything interesting at all… I tried spinning it, I blew on it, heck I even tried leaving in the freezer for an hour or two thinking that the reference in the name might be to something cold rather than something surprising…

I’d regularly report my (lack of) progress to Ali and the lads would laugh with (at!) me a little and we’d move on…

At one point I thought I’d found a way to increase the amount of play on that well-stuck nut, but that didn’t really pan out… I explored it all manner of strangeness-detectors and everything came up blank. I spent a long time examining the sticker on the carrier, certain at one point that something magical would happen if I treated it just right… but it didn’t…

And so it continued for well nigh three months, until my recent trip to The Netherlands for DCD – where I tried something I hadn’t tried at all up until now, and I found myself swearing at Ali – who sadly wasn’t in the room at the time due to a family birthday – as I suspect that he’d have enjoyed my little outburst at his, err, design ingenuity.

He’d been telling me all along that it was a bit of a Marmite puzzle, you’d either love it or you’d…. turns out I’m definitely in the love it camp – it bested me for over three months and it still got a massive smile from me when I finally solved it - it’s a goodie!