Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 – Junichi Yananose

Yay! I’m back with another board burr – This time, it’s number 4 of the 6 burr series. Thank God it’s not number 3!

An excellent Board Burr Puzzle!

This is another beautiful puzzle that utilizes Hickory and Rose Alder with pins of Bamboo. The two wood varieties achieve a nice contrast and while not exotic looking, this puzzle has a subtle beauty that is very pleasing.

This puzzle was a joy to play with. The moves are fun and satisfying. It was a bit tricky at first, although the start is very limited, the puzzle soon hits a dead end and it’s a bit difficult to figure out.

The key with this puzzle, in my opinion, is to really try to accomplish specific moves and positions. With the previous 3 board burr puzzles, I would mostly just explore every possibility with no other intention in mind. It felt impossible to actually try to solve the puzzle. Instead I was left wandering around, moving back and forth until something new opened up. With #4, I was able to determine which piece needed to come out first and was then able to strategically figure out moves to make that happen. This made it more rewarding to solve. There were even a couple of a-ha moments that really stood out.

There is one pin and groove in particular that was hidden the entire puzzle. This made things challenging, yet fun. I kept wondering why the heck certain pieces wouldn’t move as expected – turns out they were held in place by this hidden pin and groove.

I found myself a bit stuck toward the end of this puzzle – I had in fact solved it, and all I had to do was slide the piece free, but I kept searching for more. When I finally slid the piece off, I felt silly for not trying it sooner. After removing the first piece, there is still a challenge left to remove the remaining pieces.

Some interesting channels, notches and two types of pins make for some fun moves.

To me, this is a classic board burr puzzle. It’s approachable and would likely take a novice a long time to solve, but the solution isn’t terribly difficult – just keep at it and you’ll get there. Where #3 had endless pathways, dead ends and was difficult to keep track of, #4 was far more straightforward. There were some hidden moves, and a few tricks to unlock a certain piece, but overall this was a great puzzle that has given me motivation to continue with the series.

Bring on #5!

Final thought – This series is criminally underrated. There are only a few reviews online and further, a couple example have sold on the Cubicdissection marketplace for ~$60-$80 each. Perhaps board burrs are not that desirable to collectors, but these 6 Burrs stand at the top of my collection. I’ve gotten dozens of hours of very challenging puzzling out of them and they are large, heavy and well-made. What’s not to love?

Grooved 6 Board Burr #3 – Junichi Yananose

Oh boy, this one is going to be tough. I’ve been manipulating it for a casual 15 minutes and can already tell that I’m going to struggle. There are multiple paths to start with and they all seem to get complicated real quick. I’m attempting to map this thing out, but it’s going to be exceedingly difficult to keep track of the moves. It’s not simple board moves, it’s block changing multi-piece moves straight out of the gate and unless I take a photo of each move, or draw it out on paper, I’m not sure my brain can handle it. It takes something like 33 moves to get the first piece out, so I’m going to need all the luck I can get.

Ok. I think I’m making some progress. Out of the 3 beginning options, I think I’ve narrowed it down to only one path. The other 2 has multiple forks, but all came to an end within a handful of moves. That only leaves one option. Time to explore further.

Hmm. Thought I was on the right track, made it about 10 moves in, but then found another dead end, so I must have missed something. Time for bed. I’ll live to fight another day.

Day two. Stuck again after about 14 moves. This thing is tricky!

Day three, Day Four, Day Five. I’m losing a little hope here. I find myself in the familiar position of trying the same thing over and over hoping for a different result. But, as you can imagine, nothing different happens. No progress. What did I miss where is the move?

Day Six and I’ve found a new move that shifts things slightly. It seems to dead end though. The promising new move isn’t so promising after all. But it is something different, so there’s that.

One of the many complicated configurations found in this puzzle

After more tinkering, I found yet another move which allowed piece to be moved to their furtherst extend. But, maddeningly, they would not release! More tinkering and I found a way to remove the first piece! But, it requires a rotation. Juno mentions a shortcut using a rotation to remove the second piece, but I haven’t read anything about the rotation I found. Should I use this rotation or should I continue my search for the correct move. Well, I’d like to do it correctly, so no rotation for me.

OK. Officially frustrated. My careful, controlled approach is failing me. I’ve now resorted to uncontrolled fidgeting and manipulation. I’m now attempting to change the orientation of the puzzle in order to get my brain to think about different moves. I’ve traced the same moves over and over so many times that I’m now conditioned to solving the puzzle wrongly. Hopefully flipping the puzzle over, will allow me to see moves I hadn’t seen before because clearly I’m missing something.

Breakthrough!!!

This is one epic puzzle. My god. This thing is complex. I’ve finally taken the first piece out and it was completely unintentional. I had a breakthrough moment where I found a completely new path that I had never explored. I was certain that I was finally getting close, but again I found a dead end. I decided to retrace the steps to take it back to the beginning and search for a missing path. But somehow, on the path back to the beginning, I apparently found the correct path and though I thought I was going back to the start, pieces just kept moving and moves just kept appearing where they hadn’t before and I just decided to forge ahead, getting completely lost in the process. I was in awe as the puzzle moved further and further apart but still held together. My god, how can a single puzzle have so many paths?

So here I sit, with one piece out and once again, I’m stuck and can’t get any more pieces out. This puzzle is relentless!

Omg. I’m ready to break out the saw or hammer on this puzzle. I’m going to have to come back another day to try to remove the next piece. I’m just frantically moving pieces around hoping and praying that something will release. But NOOOOO. This puzzle has other ideas. Dammit Juno. How the hell did you design this diabolical thing?

I have finally done it. This has to be one of the most difficult puzzles I’ve ever disassembled. This thing is unreal. Taking out the second and even the third piece took me over an hour. It seems you have to backtrack a crazy amount of moves – pretty much back to the beginning to take yet another path to release that 2nd piece. It’s the puzzle that never ends.

It’s done.

In the end, I didn’t feel joy at solving this, I just felt relief.

The pieces don’t look so intimidating, but trust me, this thing is very challenging.

There is absolutely no way I would ever be able to reassemble this thing. I’ll have to resort to the burr file – which will be a first for me. But I just can’t imagine even attempting to put this back together.

In the end, I did contact Pluredro and they quickly sent out the Burr Tools file. I loaded it up and managed to put this thing back together. Even that was not easy. I’m not well versed in Burr Tools and had to spend a good amount of time going through step by step, rotating the puzzle around on the screen to make sure I had everything correct. The process confirmed, once again, that this is a very difficult puzzle.

The thoughts of solving 4,5 and 6 doesn’t sound very appealing at the moment. But, I’ve set out with a goal, so I’m going to give it the best I’ve got. Hopefully the next ones aren’t as ruthless.