PuzzleMaster has done it again...a new Kickstarter Campaign this time featuring well-known puzzle designer Oskar van Deventer's Honeycomb take apart-put togther puzzle. 

I have seen this version of Oskar's puzzle in 3D printed format (aka the Screw Pack) and there is a video of this 3D puzzle on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfP_hOSzHVw). But this latest version from PuzzleMaster is made entirely of metal. Not to mention it is very difficult to solve! It is also very reasonably priced considering its a high quality precision made metal puzzle. Here's the Kickstater link below:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/puzzlemaster/the-honeycomb-metal-puzzle-brain-teaser-from-puzzle-master?ref=iy8bc0

Aside from the Honeycomb puzzle which backers can purchase on its own, PuzzleMaster has also a number of special package deals consisting of different combination of different metal puzzles, all with discounts offered. Take a look at what's on offer!

The SKULL

Its here on Kickstarter! Click the link HERE.

I designed the Skull (aka Cranium) sometime in 2019 and back then several puzzlers/crafters had made 3D prints of my early designs including Jeremy Rayner from the UK and a puzzler (can't remember his name) from South Korea. Eric Fuller of Cubicdissection made a very small batch out of acrylic for sale on his website as well. I think it was pretty well received. The Skull here post-dates another "skull" design of mine; the Berro-Skull (haha, yes a play on the famous Beroccal). 

The Berro-Skull was my first skull design. As you can see its a bit crude looking

Skull (aka Cranium) generously 3D printed and gifted to me by Jeremy Raynor, UK

A South Korean teacher made this early version of the Skull out of plastic cubes

Final Prototype from PuzzleMaster

The original Skull design was 50 plus or so pieces pieces but I managed to refine my design over many months and bumped the piece and move count up to the current 67 and 116 respectively. The Skull is a serial interlocking puzzle which basically means that there is a particular order of sorts to both disassembling and assembling the pieces.

I tried to find ways to produce a copy of the Skull in stainless steel on my own but was not successful. Laser cutting 67 pieces was not only prohibitively expensive for one or two copies, but the real challenge was to ensure that the pieces could interlock together without getting stuck. This would required very precise cutting and tight tolerances. If any of pieces jammed or did not fit properly, the whole puzzle was wasted. Unlike wooden puzzles, you can't simply "sand" a piece down to make it fit, not without the correct type of equipment which I certainly did not have. My local fabricator was experienced in heavy metal works but not puzzles, so could not quite understand how puzzle things worked.

I was fortunate that Leon Stein from PuzzleMaster of Canada decided to give the Skull a go at commercial production in stainless steel on Kickstarter. This is my second collaboration with PuzzleMaster. For their first Kickstarter campaign a couple of years back, they chose my Dirty Dozen and Lattice puzzles, two interlocking flat burr puzzles. The campaign then was successful, which gave them confidence to attempt the second one here. Youtube videos of DirtyDozen and Lattice also started appearing soon after from several notable Youtube puzzle solvers. As of this writing, Dirty Dozen is sold out but PuzzleMaster has indicated to me they are producing more copies which will be available soon.

Trying to fabricate 67 steel pieces which dovetails together nicely with each other is no easy task. A lot of work went into the prototyping of the Skull with their manufacturer (this took well over a year and Covid-19 didn't help either) before they were happy with the final version for the Kickstarter campaign you see here. Also a very Big Thank You to Rex Rossano Perez for his time and effort to come up with laser-cut computer drawings of the Skull and Berro-Skull for me.

To back this Kickstarter Skull campaign, click HERE.

Berro-Skull

My Berro-Skulll puzzle, which I made a prototype in stainless steel a while back is now available for sale. It is crafted by Eric Fuller and cost US$69 plus S&H.

https://cubicdissection.com/collections/all-puzzles/products/berro-skull-interlocking-puzzle

Berro-Skull photo from and courtesy of Eric Fuller

The write up about my steel prototype is found on the link below.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/3d-puzzle-berroskull/

Aluminium L(8)tice & Dirty Dozen on Kickstarter

For lovers of interlocking puzzles (and those of you who missed out on my Dirty Dozen), there is a Kickstarter project ongoing now which features two of my designs, the Dirty Dozen and L(8)tice. The third design Slideways, comes from Ray Stanton. All the puzzles are made of heavy aluminium and anodised in attractive orange, blue and magenta. Lovely to look at and challenging to solve.

I had produced a couple of dozen (no pun intended) copies of Dirty Dozen in stainless steel previously for sale in small batches and these were always sold out the moment I listed them on my puzzle site www.mechanical-puzzles.com. Same for the L(8)tice which was manufactured in acrylic.

Here's the link to the Kickstarter page. 

All three puzzles are very affordable, considering they are all produced in anodised aluminium. The Slideways is $20, while both the Dirty Dozen and L(8)tice are going for $25 each. If you buy all three puzzles, there is a package price of $66. Shipping and handling not included.

Both the above designs and their piece shapes are also featured on Puzzlewillbeplayed.com

Dirty Dozen - 

http://puzzlewillbeplayed.com/CombCross/DirtyDozen.JL/

L(8)tice - 

http://puzzlewillbeplayed.com/CombCross/Leighttice/

Hanayama Cast Arrows

Hanayama's latest Cast puzzle offering, the Cast Arrows. Rated 3 out of 6 stars for difficulty. Not out in the market outside Japan yet. Check it out by clicking on the link below.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/hanayama-cast-arrows/ 

FOR SALE NEW! - Dirty Dozen Stainless Steel Interlocking Puzzle For Sale

Here's my latest design the "Dirty Dozen" made from laser cut 5mm stainless steel. Available for sale on my puzzle site. Click the link below.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/product/dirty-dozen-interlocking-puzzle/ 

LATEST - Symmetric Shape Puzzles From IPP37

Three of around half dozen symmetric shape puzzles featured. Puzzles from Nick Baxter, Tomas Linden/Vesa Timonen and Emrehan Halici. Please follow the link below.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/symmetric-shape-puzzles/

A Wooden Puzzle From Wil Strijbos

Dear Readers

Latest blog post uploaded.

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/a-wooden-puzzle-from-wil-strijbos/

Yet Another Clover Puzzle & Chorazin

Two new puzzle reviews posted. 

Yet Another Clover Puzzle by Rik Van Grol

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/yet-another-clover-puzzle/

Chorazin by Yael Meron

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/chorazin-puzzle-inspired-synagogue/

MiSenary Box

Dear Puzzlers

UPDATE 22 Jan 2018 - Free Goodies For Winning Bidder!!!

Michel van Ipenburg has decided to give incentives for bids exceeding various levels in the hope that this will raise higher bids. These are fantastic puzzles and I have played with three of them personally. Bid more than € 450 and get to take home a whopping 5 extra puzzles!

It goes as follows:

Bid < € 250,- : two prototypes of the CFF100 ltd ed. puzzle will be added

Bid < € 300,- : first prototype of Larva and second pair of sliders will be added as well.

Bid < € 375,- : first prototype of Ladybird will be added as well.

Bid < € 450,- : first prototype of 8 stars labyrinth will be added also!

All puzzles are fully functional though may be different from the sold products as these were for review purposes.

_____________________________________________________________________________

My friend and fellow puzzler Michel Van Ipenburg has listed his puzzle, the MiSenary Box, a puzzle box  on puzzleparadise.net for auction. This is his last copy!

Proceeds from the winning bidder will be donated to cancer research. Have a look here: https://www.puzzleparadise.net/auction_details.php?name=auction-for-charity-misenary-puzzle-box&auction_id=101683

It will run for two weeks, ending January 28th, 2018.

For reviews of the MiSenary Box please click on the following links.

http://allardspuzzlingtimes.blogspot.sg/2018/01/misenary-puzzle-box.html

http://www.puzzlemad.co.uk/2018/01/a-chance-for-you-to-win-and.html

Please share about this, thank you.

Puzzles Crafted By Eric Fuller For Sale

I have listed a number of puzzles shown below from my collection, made by Eric Fuller for sale on my puzzle site

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/product-category/private-collection/

Please feel free to check them out.

Happy New Year!

Dear Puzzling Friends

Happy New Year! 

Just a quick update to let everyone know, in case you are not on my DL or missed it that there are couple of new blog posts the last several days (The Melting Tile and Paris Pinned Wedge Key Puzzle) up on my puzzle site:

www.mechanical-puzzles.com

In the coming weeks, I shall also be listing a number of puzzles from my own collection for sale including a number of interlocking burrs eg Ternary Burr, Binary Burr and others. Do keep a look out for these!

New Puzzles For Sale

LAST FEW COPIES!!

http://mechanical-puzzles.com/puzzle-shop/

~ Free shipping with tracking number worldwide ~

Pulsar Burr

Hi folks, here's a short post which should have been published last weekend but I got caught up with life and work. Thought I would post it today before I head over to IPP37 in Europe this coming Thursday. 

The puzzle I was playing with last week was Lambert Brights's IPP35 Exchange Puzzle called "Pulsar Burr" designed by Junichi Yananose and manufactured by Brian Young of Mr Puzzle, Australia.

The Pulsar consist of 5 pieces, four board pieces made of 10mm acrylic and a single wooden notched burr made of Australian Jarrah. Quality and build is up to the usual high standards coming from Brian and all the pieces fit and move smoothly. Although my copy was a tad too snug probably due to the high humidity of Singapore causing the wooden piece to expand. The acrylic pieces are precise laser cut with no slant edges whatsoever as sometimes appearing on thicker cut acrylic pieces. Size is 60mm x 40mm x 80mm when assembled.

Nothing too unusual about the Pulsar as far as an interlocking burr goes except that you will notice that one of the board pieces has a curved channel cut into it. Rather unique and -certainly the first time I have come across a burr piece with a curved cut-out like that. Straight off, this tells me that Burr Tools probably can't work for this puzzle Ha Ha!

The puzzle (unfortunately) came unassembled, hence my struggle with it last week. I can understand why it was like that, since an assembled puzzle would not have been too difficult considering it requires only several moves to extract the first piece. But unassembled, that is a whole different thing altogether, especially something designed by Junichi. Putting together something like that from scratch would have required a great deal of experimentation and analysis, not to mention trial and error, something which (with hindsight after looking at the accompanying solution) would have rather been beyond me. My early concerted attempts to solve were quite off-tangent to begin with. Brian says that "this is a very doable puzzle for someone who’s had a little experience assembling burrs....",  hmm...I am not so sure about that!

Assembled, the puzzle looks pretty nice with a combo of wood and acrylic. I tried the disassembly and this proved to be very manageable without the solution. This puzzle is definitely for diehard fans of interlocking burrs. And for a very reasonable price too of A$32.73 on Brian's website, although the wooden piece there has both ends tapered.

Sliced Puzzle Ball

The Sliced Puzzle Ball (SPB) designed by Vesa Timonen is probably one of the smallest interlocking puzzles around and certainly the smallest in my collection. 

I had met Vesa the first time during IPP33 in Tokyo, Japan and he was really very kind to gift his SPB (his Exchange Puzzle) to me. Measuring only a micro 16mm in diameter, it consist of 6 flat "board burr" pieces with curved edges and when joined together becomes a perfectly round ball. The SPB comes with its own nice little felt-lined gift box.

Sliced Puzzle Ball next to Cast Loop

In case you don't know who Vesa Timonen is, he is a well-known designer of a number of Hanayama Cast Series puzzles including the Infinity and the famous Loop. I also have one of his less common (but unusual) puzzle called the Onion.

My copy is made by Shapeways out of white and pink dyed nylon. The SPB is currently also available (at a much larger size of about 3+cm) for sale together with some of Vesa's other puzzles listed.

When I first played with it back in 2014, I struggled with the solution and couldn't figure how to disassemble it without breaking anything...it seemed so fragile! Needless to say, the handling of such a tiny puzzle was extremely fiddly and I kept dropping it out of my fingers.  I emailed him for a solution but Vesa didn't have a step by step one instead he directed me to his Shapeways listing which showed the 6 pieces separate in an exploded view. He also indicated that some force may be necessary for the initial move. Even with that, somehow things appeared to be stuck and I couldn't take the ball apart. 

Fast forward 3 years later and this second time round, I gave the SPB another go. I finally managed to take it apart, albeit with some force... the nylon is surprisingly resilient! Thankfully nothing broke. Putting it back together was unexpectedly much easier and strangely it didn't require any force...the pieces "just slid together" back into the shape of a ball, once the pieces were in their correct orientations and positions.

I tried to configure the puzzle using Burr Tools but the programme didn't come up with any solution. Again, not sure if I got the specs correct into Burr Tools. Maybe that's why the need for some force!

Tetro-Billes

Two years ago, I received a copy of Tetro-Billes, courtesy of its designer and my good friend Frederic Boucher. Billes in French means "small balls"....

Tetro-Billes was entered in the IPP35 Puzzle Design Competition by Frederic and is classified as a 1.1 2-Dimensional assembly puzzle. In common puzzle terms, I would consider it as one from the pattern matching category of puzzles. 

Frederic, who lives in Japan, is a pretty prolific designer and does not just design a particular genre of puzzles but his scope is quite varied (and interesting), ranging from exotic wooden 3D packing puzzles like the Marble Cake and Artefacts to Impossible Objects like Smiley In A Bottle and stuff in between such as his dexterity puzzles like Pyramida and Manholes 55 and a couple of burrs here and there.

Now back to the puzzle. I had kept it away for about two years since 2015, forgot about it and only recently re-discovered it and decided to give it a go. The puzzle consists of five wooden pieces (made of Japanese Beech) each containing blue and yellow marbles held in holes drilled into the wood. Quality of construction is very good and the marbles all fit tightly without fear of falling loose (although Frederic indicates that they can be removed and changed about for other sorts of challenges...which I didn't try for fear of damage)

The object of the puzzle is assemble the pieces so that the marbles form five different tetromino shapes - three in blue and two in yellow, with two solutions. Sounds rather simple doesn't it? considering its just 5 pieces to move around on a flat surface. Well I couldn't be more wrong. I spent several sessions over a few days before I discovered what I thought was the solution and happily shot an email to Frederic (which I usually do when I solve his puzzles or when I need help). Or at least I thought I did. Frederic reverted to say that while I have 5 tetraminos, two of them are identical (the yellow marbles). The photo below shows a solution, but its not THE intended solution.

I then spent another good several sessions over two days trying to figure this one out...but thus far have been unsuccessful. The time I allotted myself for this puzzle had exceeded so I decided to throw in the towel and look at the accompanied solution. Sigh...I was close but not quite there.

For anyone wanting something different to challenge your wits or if you are interested in any of Frederic's puzzles mentioned above (and mind you he may even have new ones that I am unaware of), PM me and I will link you up him. Perhaps he might just have a copy or two lying around available for sale.

Hanayama Dice Box

Update 23 October 2017 - Dear Reader, please check out my new puzzle blog and e-store at http://mechanical-puzzles.com

This weekend I played with the plastic version of a very famous Akio Kamei designed puzzle, the Dice Box. The original wooden versions hail from the Karakuri Creation Group of Japan, of which Kamei is a member and are handcrafted from exotic hardwoods. The copy that I have is a reproduction made of plastic and comes from Hanayama.

There are already several reviews of the Dice Box by puzzle collectors/bloggers Oliver Sovary-Soos and Brian Pletcher, so you can read their experiences with the original wooden version. There's even a video uploaded by PuzzleboxWorld.

While not in wood nor crafted by Kamei himself, the plastic version by Hanayama is no less of a nice puzzle. While I have not played with the wooden version, I am confident that Hanayama, as a reputable Japanese manufacturer of puzzles would have faithfully followed the design of Kamei in coming up with an inexpensive version of what is a collector's (and very expensive) copy of the Dice Box. 

My copy measures a smaller size of 5.6cm cube all round, about a third of the size of its wooden cousins. As far as quality is concerned, no issues here. The plastic feels solid and the sliding panel that opens the box slides smoothly with little free play. The inside bottom of the box is even lined with a piece of red felt, such attention to detail. Obviously for a plastic version which is significantly cheaper than the original, the pips (or dots) here are printed on the six surfaces as opposed to the wooden version which has recessed holes and contrasting woods. 

What is strange is that unlike the wooden original, the Hanayama version comes already solved, ie with the lid open. I would think the wooden version is harder, since it comes closed and being a Kamei creation, finding the panel that slides would already be a challenge in itself. As John Rausch said: 

"The Die is one of Kamei's most famous secret opening boxes. Familiarity with the spots on a normal die will help you discover the first clue to opening it. The objective is find a way into the secret compartment that is shown in the 2nd photograph. The mechanism is outstanding. Perhaps the best of any Kamei box"

The object of my copy is to close the lid, give it a good shake, turn it around in all directions (to activate the locking mechanism) and then try to open the lid again. I did precisely these and found the lid shut tight. Sounds of moving parts can be heard inside the puzzle and the trick is to figure how to solve the mechanism which unlatches the sliding top. As you can't see what goes on inside (nor the mechanism) even when the lid is opened, there is little clue offered as to how to go about solving the Dice Box once shut. 

So the initial stages of play consisted of random tilting and and turning of the box and even some light tapping (from the Japanese instructions on the box, I could not tell if there was something to indicate "no tapping/banging"). I have some experience with hidden mechanism puzzle boxes and I tried a couple of methods to see if these did the trick. After several minutes of play, suddenly the lid slid open by itself! I am not exactly sure what I had done correctly, but I had a rough idea of the moves needed to repeat the result. The next several attempts resulted in easy solves. I knew what needed to be done, but only had a vague idea of how the mechanism inside worked. I was able to repeat solve most of time using the sequence of moves which I assume to be correct. 

The plastic Dice Box (in several colour variations) is available from Amazon and Ebay from between $14/- to $40/- while the Kamei-made wooden ones, in excess of $150/- are available from PuzzleboxWorld and Art Of Play. 

Hexsticks

Stewart Coffin puzzles, especially those hand-crafted, exotic wood and multi-piece interlocking ones are not typically readily available for sale most of the time. And when they do become available, and even tho' they're pretty pricey, they get snapped up in a jiffy. 

So when I chanced upon the Hexsticks in a hotel souvenir store in Hokkaido, Japan last year, I bought a copy, even though I am not a die-hard fan of such puzzles...but what the heck...it was at a rather reasonable price of 2,900 Yen, or about US$25/-.

The Hexsticks is Coffin design #25A, which was based upon his earlier #25, the Hectix. My version came from a Japanese company called Woody Craft and there doesn't appear to be any website link for this brand. My copy, being made in Japan is a quality product and very well constructed. Not sure what sort of wood, probably local but the fit and finish is very good with no sloppiness or movement of the pieces in the assembled state.

The Hexsticks consist of 12 pieces, 9 of which are identical, cut in a certain way with notches and the remaining 3 also identical, but their notches cut differently. All the pieces have a hexagon cross section and the notches are all cut diagonally at a specific angle. Apparently there are three solution shapes that can be formed from the 12 pieces. This puzzle (and its variants) has been crafted and produced by a number of well-known puzzle makers.

The puzzle came un-assembled and thankfully, there were instructions on how to put the pieces together (for one of the solutions). Honestly, not being good at these sort of puzzles, I would not have been able to solve it without help. Even if the sticks were quad-coloured and I had completed puzzle photo to follow, it may still have eluded me.The instructions are in Japanese but the accompanying photos were clear enough for me to follow without resorting to trying to figure out the text.

I found that after the first solve and re-doing it second time, I could repeatedly solve it without the instructions after some practice. With 9 identical pieces to start with at the beginning, it is not too difficult to memorize where each piece goes where after a few tries. Completed, it displays very well and truly looks the part as a very serious and complicated puzzle indeed!

Both Brian Pletcher and  Kevin Sadler have solved their respective Hexsticks and Hectix Revisited copies and you can read about their experiences here and here. These guys are super-solvers, so it wasn't too difficult for them.

For those interested, there are several places where the Hexsticks is sold, one is a Japanese online retailer while the other is a US based home accessories store called Monolier, the latter which incidentally sells the same puzzle I have here but at nearly twice the price! And of course Amazon and Ebay as well, just do a search for "Hectix". And for those hard-core puzzle fans that like to know even more about burrs and polyhedral puzzles, read Stewart Coffin's very interesting and informative book here.

Hanayama Cast Shift

Update 24 October 2017 - Dear Reader, please check out my new puzzle blog and e-store at http://mechanical-puzzles.com

One of Hanayama's latest Cast Series puzzles, the Shift was released in February 2017 with their updated and contemporary packaging bearing the name "HUZZLE", a combo of the words Hanayama and Puzzle. I was very fortunate and had the great pleasure of receiving the Shift (and Box Dice puzzle) over a nice Japanese dinner from the management folks of Hanayama, namely Kunihiro Kobayashi and Takeshi Onishi, the President and Sales Manager respectively, when both gentlemen were in Singapore for a business trip early this week. 

Measuring 4cm all round, the Shift at first glance looks somewhat like a 4-piece interlocking board burr made of metal; and there are a couple of other such similar looking wooden designs such as the Lattice and Four Frames designed by Andrey Ustjuzhanin. The Shift is cut from sheet metal (thanks to fellow puzzler/collector Michel van Ipenburg who pointed this out) and chrome plated to a glossy shiny surface. The 4 pieces consist of two congruent pairs with slots and corner triangles cut into them. If it's any help, let me say the triangles are cosmetic only and doesn't affect the solve. For better grip perhaps. 

The Shift was designed by Russian designer Kirill Grebnev who, together with Dmitry Pevnitskiy, was also behind the Cast Harmony puzzle. Apart from physical appearance, there is no other similarity between the Shift and the type of wooden board burrs named above. Certainly not the solving! Quality wise it's up to the usual Hanayama standards which is very good. Takeshi-san, the Sales Manager was telling me that Hanayama has a stringent quality control programme particularly for their puzzles that are manufactured outside of Japan. I don't own many Cast Puzzles but for those that I do, rarely have I encountered any real quality issues. The tolerances for the Shift is just nice and the pieces slide and move smoothly. 

Kunihiro Kobayashi (right), President of Hanayama Toys, Japan with Sales Manager Takeshi Onishi (left)

The Shift is rated 3 stars for difficulty, meaning it is of average difficulty. Give the Shift to an experienced puzzler and the difficulty quotient would probably be, well, average. But to a pure novice, it could mean "damn difficult" or impossible. IMHO, I think the rating here is about right. It's not too difficult, but certainly provides a fair measure of challenge. It took me a good 10-15 minutes before I figured out how the pieces interacted to unravel them. Oh, Burr Tools won't work here for sure, cos you can't solve it the normal burr way.

Once the prices came apart, to put them back together again was just the reverse procedure. Just make sure the right pieces are slotted against each other or you'll find yourself getting a bit stuck. With practice, the puzzle can be easily repeatedly solved. Like most of the Cast Series puzzles rated 3-star for their difficulty, the Shift is good for both the casual and experienced puzzler alike. For me personally, I like the Shift because I can see all the pieces and nothing is hidden from view, and the solution is pretty elegant. A fun solve no less.

And for the very reasonable price of the Cast Series puzzles, typically around US$11.50 to US$12 each, you would be hard pressed to get better value elsewhere, both in terms of overall quality and puzzle experience.

Chequered Cube

I have known Neil Hutchison for the last several years and also met him on a couple of occasions during past IPPs. Chequered Cube was Neil's IPP34 Exchange Puzzle in London in 2014 and the first puzzle design from him in my collection. Neil, also know as "The Juggler" in the puzzle community, is an excellent woodworker and also has his own blog site, where he posts puzzle stuff now and again, but unfortunately not often enough!

Chequered Cube came in a smallish nice fitting cardboard box and when I first opened the lid, I thought it was some kind of burr or interlocking puzzle made out of at most half a dozen or so pieces squeezed into a 5cm-sized package.

Little did I know that as I spilled out the contents, the burr was not actually a burr but a diminutive 3D cube packing puzzle comprising a staggering 13 separate parts made of various dark (walnut) and light (maple) pieces glued together.

The pieces are all precisely cut with sharp edges, and fit together incredibly well and the quality of the workmanship is astounding. I am truly impressed how Neil was able to produce the minimum 100 copies needed for the Exchange.

The object of the puzzle is take apart the cube and re-assemble it into a 2x2 checkerboard cube. According to the instructions, there are four ways to put together the cube but only one solution for the checkerboard pattern on the sides.

While this was a beautifully made puzzle and all those 13 pieces were lovely to touch, the difficulty quotient was totally out of my league. Even just trying to put the pieces back together to form a cube (without checkerboard pattern) proved to be too difficult for me. I simply could not handle that many pieces, the shape they are in, with all their notches and grooves made me want to faint with confusion. But lets get real here...any puzzle with over a dozen pieces (and designed by an experienced puzzler) would unlikely ever be a walk in the park, would it?

Solved State

After much effort and time, I decided to find the solution via Burr Tools. For those of you puzzlers out there who have problems with this sort of puzzles or interlocking/burrs etc, trust me, its still fun, thrilling (and challenging) just to configure the puzzle in Burr Tools to find a solution. Yes....a bit of a lame consolation! Using Burr Tools with the relevant colour constraints, the programme came up with the solution on how to form the Chequered Cube with a checkerboard pattern on all six sides and I was able to put the cube back together in no time.

Chequered Cube is a fine work of art for a puzzle with great attention to detail. For those of you who are die-hard fans of 3D packing puzzles, well, this is one you should try to get from Neil. Not sure if he has any left but he can certainly be contacted via his blog site. I just wished that he had also made a matching wooden box to house the pieces...now this would have been so cool!