Burr Puzzle – Page 2 – Puzzle Pusher

TRIAD – Osanori Yamamoto

This week, I have Triad, designed by Osanori Yamamoto and built by Jakub Dvorak of Pelikan Puzzles. I purchased all the recent Pelikan puzzles – minus Excalibur – and will be writing my thoughts on all of them over the next couple of months.

This was the first of six puzzles that I opened and immediately I am made aware of how beautiful Pelikan Puzzles are. They are so well made, the tolerances are so small and the wood choices are impeccable. The difference between these and other puzzles is immediate. These puzzles are absolute works of art.

This particular puzzle contains 3 burr-type pieces enclosed in an open framed box. The pieces appear to be identical in shape, though Jakub has wisely chosen 3 different types of wood. This puzzle is smaller than the others, but that’s ok because I’m running out of room on my puzzle shelf!

This puzzle seems fairly straightforward. The three pieces can each slide independently of each other and there are no internal stoppers or notches in the framed box. It seems that it is just a matter of finding the proper sequence to remove the first piece. I would expect that the second and third piece fall out once the first is gone.

After playing around with this thing for a few minutes, I have a couple of observations. First, the pieces are not identical, there is a definite difference – though they all seem to share a similar forked end, there are seemingly some variations between the pieces. The second thing I noticed, is that this puzzle is a little trickier than I had initially thought.

The pieces move in and out and conveniently shift to make room

After about 20 more minutes of work, I have the puzzle disassembled. The moves are not too difficult to figure out and I don’t remember any dead ends, so it seems like a fairly linear path to resolution. Despite my initial prediction, once I had the first piece out, the remaining two pieces DID NOT just fall out. In fact, the final two pieces were pretty tricky. I had several “incredulous head shakes” at my own expense while trying to remove those final 2 pieces. There is definitely a particular sequence, even though it feels like it should be easy.

The pieces have been removed, now time to assemble

I’m a bit nervous about re-assembly though – I’ve made the decision to scramble the pieces and not reference any photos to attempt the re-assembly – wish me luck..

But before I re-assemble. Let me take a moment to once again point out how beautiful and well-made these puzzles are. I’ve examined the pieces thoroughly and am truly impressed by the workmanship. Everything is just perfect and precise. In fact, I’m out of adjectives to describe it. There’s just something incredibly satisfying about holding perfectly accurate wood structures…. Ok. back to it..

Well assembly is not easy. I’m still working on it, but I’ve noticed something very obvious that I had overlooked… The framed box isn’t square. Yeah, I know, super obvious, but for some reason, it didn’t really register. But since the 3 internal pieces are not all the same length, it is now clear which pieces are horizontal pieces and which one goes in a vertical orientation…

Yes! I’ve re-assembled the puzzle and it was super fun. This is a great little puzzle. It’s one of those puzzles with a perfect balance of difficulty and intrigue. It seems almost impossible at times, but there are enough clues available to sort of funnel you into the correct solution. Since the box is open, you can see inside and see all the movements. Thus, using a little logic, you can determine what pieces need to go where – they simply wouldn’t fit in a different orientation. So, armed with a little knowledge and determination, I think this puzzle is very doable for even a novice puzzler.

Solved puzzle was fun, picture is a little crooked.

Theres one or two clever little moves that allow this puzzle to work and I’m excited to run through this one a few times to see if I can really master what is happening.

The other thing to mention is that this puzzle requires zero rotations. There were a few times where the pieces “wanted” to rotate and I thought that maybe I could remove one with rotations, but I resisted the urge and you should too. Thanks to the incredibly precise nature of this puzzle, it was obvious that rotations were not correct, but if this puzzle were looser – it would be easy to accidentally rotate a piece.

Buy your copy here

Okto Cube – Yavuz Demirhan

Today, we have another beauty from Eric over at Cubicdissection.com. This one is called Okto Cube and was designed by Yavuz Demirhan. This particular puzzle immediately caught my eye when it was listed, and I was very excited to work on it. I love the looks of it and it was equally fun to manipulate and discover it’s secrets.

This is a six piece board burr encased in an eight piece cube. The cube pieces are made out of solid wood which gives this puzzle an overall weight that is pleasing and the boards are well made and strong.

Solving this puzzle took a while. I brought it with me on Thanksgiving vacation, hoping that I would have some quiet evenings to work on it. Well, I didn’t have many quiet evenings, but I did get to work on it extensively, which was great.

I had played with this puzzle a handful of times before I made any real progress. I could move a few of the burr pieces, but always hit the same dead end. Eventually, I discovered that it wasn’t a dead end after all. Once in the “dead end” position, I found that the signed burr piece could move freely. I had missed this move because its quite easy for the pieces to bind up a little. I often had to pull on board pieces to make sure they were fully extended before manipulating the next piece. It seems to loosen up after a bit of use, but is something to watch out for.

Once, the signed burr piece moved, I was then able to remove 2 of the cube pieces, which was a very cool (and scary) moment. I was expecting the puzzle to fall apart at this point, but that wasn’t the case at all, in fact, I had a long way to go.

The Signed board makes an appearance and one cube is removed.

Removing the 2 cube pieces revealed more of the interior and allowed me to see just how complex this puzzle is. There sure are lots of moving parts! I continued to manipulate the puzzle and was able to remove the first board piece. Soon after, I found that 2 more cubes were ready to fall off. Awesome! This thing is really fun.

4 cubes and a board removed. This puzzle is fun!

I continued to manipulate the parts feeling certain that I was close to the end. But no.. the puzzle still held secrets for me to unravel. I persevered and after a bit more manipulation and I removed 2 more cubes! I was now down to the final 2 cubes!

This is where things got really interesting for me. I was working on the puzzle in front of the tv, sitting with family, and I just didn’t have the focus I needed. I began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to get it back together again! I was hoping that the final 2 cubes would come off easily, but that wasn’t the case. I was having to do more movements than I could keep track of and I made the decision to stop and reassemble. Bah! I always seem to do this. Luckily, I was able to get the puzzle back together, but I was a bit ashamed that I didn’t finish it.

I ended my vacation and flew home defeated. I had come so close to the solution, but didn’t quite get there.

Well, last night, I sat down, determined to redeem myself and finally solve this puzzle. I progressed through all the stages and once again found myself with the final 2 cube pieces attached to 4 burrs. I slowed myself down and analyzed the situation. There were a surprising amount of available moves and positions that I could find and eventually, I tried a combination of positions not previously attempted and voila! The 2 remaining cubes slid right off! Disassembling the final 4 burr pieces was not trivial either, but I got it done.

Whew! That was an awesome puzzle!

But.. it wasn’t over yet. I still had to assemble the puzzle. Interestingly, I didn’t have much trouble on the assembly. I think that my aborted attempt during thanksgiving vacation had given me a better understanding of the moves required, and so assembly felt rather easy. I think the most difficult part was getting it started. For some reason, I seem to have trouble assembling the initial 4 burr pieces. But once that is complete and I had slid on the first two cubes, it was all downhill from there.

I’ve since solved this puzzle a couple of times. I had to take some pictures and also wanted to better understand the mechanics behind it all. It is truly a remarkable puzzle and it is very repeatable once you understand the required positions. This is now one of my favorite puzzles! Check it out if you can!

Okto Cube looking all dramatic in the light

— SPOILERS BELOW. —

Two Face 3 – Alfons Eyckmans

This week, I have another fantastic burr puzzle created by Eric Fuller and designed by Alfons Eyckmans. This one is called Two Face 3 and is one special puzzle – I’m still reeling from having just completed it.

To begin with, this puzzle is a beautiful work of art. Its visual appearance is stunning – the construction is superb and the choice of woods really elevates the whole design. It’s a 6 piece burr, but unique in that there are two outer cages that can move independently of each other. The inner cage has a few strategically placed cubes and cutouts that combine to make this not only a difficult puzzle, but also a very clever one. The construction of the cages is incredibly sturdy and they fit together very tightly making for a very solid feeling puzzle.

Beautiful construction and and high difficulty make this puzzle shine

The overall design is very clever. The use of two cages is not just for looks either, it factors into the solution.

This was another intimidating puzzle for me. It sat on the shelf for a couple of weeks before I started to tinker with it, and then it was another week until I really decided to put some effort into it. Whether it’s intimidation or a desire to relish the puzzle as long as possible, I find that sometimes, I’m just content to let it sit. Maybe I don’t want the experience to be over, so I procrastinate a bit, I let the puzzle breath like a fine wine, until that perfect moment arrives and then I sit down with a job to do.

And so, I finally sat down with this one last week and began to seriously work on it. I began exploring different moves and discovered some typical burr-type moves, but didn’t make any real progress. I kept going in circles, with no real progress made.

I spent a number of sessions doing this. Moving pieces, feeling like progress was made only to find myself back at the beginning. Early sessions like this are enjoyable to me – I don’t really want to solve it quickly, I just want to enjoy the experience for a while and Two Face 3 really delivered the goods. But, that said, after a certain number of sessions, i start to feel like I need to make some more progress – so, I increase my focus and start trying abnormal moves.

This yielded some success for me as I discovered an interesting placement for one of the pieces. Surely I was on to something here! But, even with this new discovery, I couldn’t make any progress. I was able to revert back to the beginning position and then repeat the move, but it still didn’t yield any solution.

After a few more sessions, I discovered a similar move at another location and then knew I was making progress. But, to my dismay, the solution still wasn’t there. Man, this puzzle really takes some work! I spent another day working various moves but couldn’t make progress. I had to be on the right track didn’t I?

Well, one morning, I took the half-solved puzzle to work with me and sat there fiddling with the pieces when suddenly, one fell out! Holy crap! I didn’t expect that, but apparently I had done the right thing and was rewarded. I spent the next 15 minutes carefully removing the remaining pieces and then bathed in glory as I examined all the pieces and marveled at the craftsmanship.

Then, fear set in. I went from joyful elation to fear. I was so happy to have solved the puzzle that I forgot to pay attention to the orientation and position of the 2 cages and the burr pieces. I didn’t really think about the fact that the 2 cages could be put together in 8 different ways… and if they weren’t put together correctly, then there’s no way the burr pieces would fit… How on earth was I going to get this thing back together…?

All the pieces have been removed! Halfway there!

Well, the good news was I had taken various photos while tinkering with the puzzle. So, I went back and took a look at those photos and was able to deduce the orientation and placement of the 2 cages – phew – crisis averted. Although, that would have made one heck of a challenge – to start with this puzzle completely disassembled and go from there. Maybe one day..

Anyway, even though I had the orientation of the cages documented, I still didn’t know how to reassemble this thing. I did keep track of the order in which I removed the burr pieces, and that would prove helpful, but it wouldn’t move the puzzle for me.

In the end it took me at least another 3 hours to put it back together. It’s a tricky puzzle and requires a very specific sequence to solve it. Interestingly, I employed a rotation to put it back together – I’m not convinced that it was entirely necessary, but at a certain point, rotating the burr piece allowed another piece to move where I wanted it and then I rotated the original piece back. Again, not sure if it was necessary, but I remember playing with a rotation when disassembling too, so perhaps it is required.

This may be the most difficult burr puzzle I’ve ever solved and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not eager to solve it again anytime soon, but I do think I will revisit it one day and see if I can get a better handle on how it works. Highly recommended if you enjoy this type of puzzle – and there are even some left at cubicdissection.com

Prison Burr – Stephane Chomine

Ah, the Prison Burr, another fine creation constructed by the fine folks at Cubicdissection. Did I mention that I really, really like the puzzles from Cubicdissection? Pretty much everything I have bought from them is heirloom quality, challenging and fun!

Today, I writing about the Prison Burr. This intimidating puzzle is sort of like a standard 6 piece burr, however, there is no access to the bottom of the puzzle and all the pieces are contained in a cage – which makes it very challenging indeed. This one sat on the shelf for a number of weeks as I solved other puzzles and made excuses as to why I didn’t have the time or focus to work on it. Well, I knew that eventually, I’d have to give it a go, so a couple weeks ago I sat down with the intention of solving it.

The thing is, this is one complex puzzle and as stated earlier, I was intimidated. I was able to remove the first piece easily enough, but the second piece involved lots of maneuvering and every time I felt that I was making progress, I chickened out and returned it to the start. My main fear was that I’d never be able to get it back together again, and by the time I started making progress, I was too deep for my brain to remember the moves. Maybe I should just “go for it” and deal with the consequences later, but that’s not how I like to do puzzles. I prefer to keep track of the movements the first time I solve it. Later on subsequent efforts, I am more inclined to let myself get lost.

Well, the day finally came, where I had enough time to really work on this thing. I was determined to move forward at all costs and get this thing solved once and for all.

I have to say, I really, really enjoyed this puzzle. The movements are great, there are multiple dead ends and the puzzle stays challenging to the final piece.

The first piece is rather trivial to remove, but it doesn’t help much. Removing the first piece does allow for a view of the interior, which is helpful, but the second piece is far trickier to remove. I went down many paths and found a few dead ends, but eventually felt that I was getting closer to the correct moves. After many trials, I was brave enough to pull out the second piece. Here we go! No turning back now!

Removal of the 3rd piece is even trickier. Even now, I know the order of removal, but it is still awfully difficult to get that 3rd piece out. I’ve now solved this puzzle multiple times, but its always that 3rd piece that causes me grief. And to make matters worse, once the 3rd piece is removed, it is still difficult to remove the 4th. In fact, this puzzle just doesn’t get any easier. Usually, the 2nd piece is the corner stone and it all comes apart easily afterwards, but not with the Prison Burr. This thing brings it until the end. You would think that with only 3 pieces left, it would be easy, but it’s not. The final 2 pieces are definitely easier to remove, but they still take a some specific moves.

The photos don’t do it any justice. This thing is built like a tank and super difficult.

And then, there is the reassembly. It’s not easy. Not at all. Getting the first 3 pieces back in correctly is quite difficult – I can’t imagine solving this one without knowing the order of the pieces. Even armed with that knowledge, this thing is very challenging.

Well, I’ve talked about how difficult this puzzle is, but I also was to talk about how rewarding it is. I’m really very happy with this puzzle. In fact, I have solved it several times now and while I’m getting more familiar with the necessary moves, It still gives me great joy to complete it.

Part of that joy comes from the wonderful construction. At $75, this is an expensive puzzle, but if you have even the most basic knowledge of carpentry, it is easy to justify the cost. The construction of this is spectacular. Its not flashy with exotic wood choices, but the cage is a marvel of perfectly mitered pieces and where burr puzzles can be “sticky” and hard to manipulate, the movements here are smooth and precise.

Overall, I am so happy to have this in my collection. This is definitely a test-piece for the savvy puzzler. I would highly recommend it if you want a challenge!

Aquarius+ – Stephane Chomine

Ok. tonight I have the Aquarius+ designed by Stephane Chomine and crafted by Cubic Dissection. This puzzle is smaller than I envisioned, but it is far more beautiful than expected. The striped wenge grain on the two burr pieces is just georgeous and the inclusion of a smaller slider piece is fascinating. I received 3 puzzles in this shipment and I was drawn to this one first. I can’t wait to get started.

Well 5 minutes in and I very well may be screwed. I was trying to keep track of the movements and manipulations but I quickly lost track of what was happening and that cute little slider piece is now pretty loose inside this thing and I think I can prolly just shake it out, but I’m not exactly sure how it got to where it is now, so I’m contemplating whether to push forward and solve the puzzle or whether to try to backtrack a step in order to not lose track of the movements…

At 10 minutes in, I’ve now reset the puzzle. Whew. I’m not sure how close I was to the solution, but I realized that I never really looked very hard at the starting position, so I’m glad to have gotten it back to where I can now start a little more methodical in my approach. Back at it.

At 15:56 I got the little slider piece out. There is actually a surprising amount of room in this puzzle to move the burr pieces around. I’m not exactly sure what the sequence of moves were to free the slider, but hopefully, I’ll be able to re-insert it during assembly and sort of nudge it back into place similar to how I got it out… Lets see how easy the burr pieces are to remove..

Turns out removing the burr pieces is trivial once the slider is out. And so there it is, solved and laid bare for me to examine. The scary part is… Its not exactly clear how this puzzle should be reassembled – that is – even though I studied the starting position a bit, I’m not entirely sure which orientation the pieces need to be.. which makes the prospects of re-assembly… scary.

Well, I was able to put the puzzle back together after a bit of work – at least I think I got it back to the starting position – unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any photos online of what this puzzle looks like in the completed state, so if there are multiple possible configurations, I may not have it done correctly.

Which leads to my next thought – Does this puzzle really require a 17.9.3 solution? I do not believe that it took 17 moves to take out the first piece. It was more like 6-7 moves and then a bit of jostling to free the slider. Maybe I am completely off with my solution and analysis, but I didn’t find it nearly as difficult as the rating would suggest.

My other criticism lies in the manipulation of the small slider. It is not easy to manipulate and in the end, I used a toothpick to reach into the cage and help position the slider. Perhaps there is a solution that involves moving the burr pieces around to shift the position of the slider?

Overall, this really is a beautiful puzzle – and I like the idea of using a smaller scale piece in the puzzle – in fact, I’d like to see more puzzles use different sized pieces. But I do think this puzzle falls a little short when compared to the other offerings at cubic dissection. The build quality is not quite as good (burr pieces have grooves and saw marks). And having to manipulate and rotate the slider within the cage didn’t feel like solving a puzzle, it felt more like chance.

If anyone else has worked on this puzzle, please let me know of your experience. I’d like to know if I missed something or not.

Wourie – Alfons Eyckmans

I am excited about this one – “Wourie” is a puzzle designed by Alfons Eyckmans and built by Pelikan Puzzles out of the Czech Republic. This piece was part of my first ever order from Pelikan and I have to say, I am extremely impressed with the workmanship of their puzzles. There will be many more posts in the future taking a close look at additional offerings from Pelikan

But today, I’m focused on Wourie. Oh, what an exquisite puzzle it is! The woodwork really is superb. It just feels nice to hold and play with. The puzzle came in two different wood variations – Mahogany or cherry. I chose the Cherry option and I’m very happy with the appearance.

Solving this puzzle takes a bit of work and a bit of time. I decided to take this one slow – I really wanted to enjoy every moment of discovery with this piece and what a fun journey it was!

At first this puzzle seems limited in the possible moves. A piece moves up, a piece moves down, but there doesn’t seem to be any progression. After a few deadends, I discovered a new direction that I hadn’t tried before and sure enough, this led to the solution. I was so excited that I had figured it out that I completely ignored the position of the pieces and the final move – and then it was too late, the pieces were unlocked and scrambled on my desk and I could not remember which order they were in.

A beautiful puzzle disassembled – getting this together again is no easy task!

Well, the description of this puzzle says that “reassembly is a real challenge if you scramble the pieces and leave them a while” and I would have to strongly agree with that assessment. I didn’t leave the pieces a while, but they were scrambled up good so I was left with starting the reassembly from scratch.

Reassembly took me a good 2-3 hours and it is really tricky to figure out. I knew right away which order the pegs go in, after all, I could see the picture on the Pelican site, but I didn’t know what orientation those pegs should go in and I also didn’t know what order or orientation the plates belonged.

So, it was lots of trial and error – many positions could be easily eliminated as possibilities, but there were still lots of potential options available to test out. Fairly early on in the process, I was feeling pretty confident about which pieces belonged where – from that point, it was just a matter of figuring out how to assemble the pieces.

I remembered from solving the puzzle that the natural colored peg came out first, so that gave me some clue as to how to reassemble, but it was still a long while before I finally got it figured out. I kept banging my head on the wall trying the same thing over and over, and of course it didn’t work – over and over. I finally stepped out of my own box and tried something a little different and just like that, it was back together.

Once back together, I slowly solved it again – this time paying attention to the moves – especially the final move (which is devilishly clever if you ask me.) In total, I counted 12 moves necessary to release the first piece and likewise 12 moves to put it back together once pieces are in correct position.

Overall, I love this puzzle. I think its a brilliant design with amazing fit and finish. It kept me highly engaged for many hours. I would highly recommend this puzzle to anyone (if you can get one!) It would look great on a desk or shelf and I can’t wait to share this with friends and family!

Funzzle – Gamma

Ahh, another Funzzle puzzle. This time, its the Gamma. This one looks fairly complex and difficult. Let’s see if I can get it opened.

The first thing I notice is that this puzzle is pretty loose. It doesn’t fall apart, but it does feel like it might fall apart if you hold it wrong. A number of pieces slide back and forth and it seems like there will be a lot of combinations to work through here.

I took the initial, disassembly phase, really slowly. I know I have to put it back together, so I want to pay close attention to what I’m doing. I didn’t want to just wiggle out pieces, I wanted to get the specific moves memorized and accounted for, so that I could reverse things.

With that disclaimer in place, I’ll admit that getting the first piece out took me a while – maybe close to an hour total. There were a few different sequences I tried, but they were all dead ends, then I finally found a sequence that seemed like it would work. At this point, I worked the sequence forward and back a number of times until I felt that I had it memorized. It takes 6-7 moves to remove the first piece.

Once I had the first piece removed, it was easy – or so I thought… Actually, it took me another 15 minutes to remove the second piece. Again, I felt that I could just rattle the puzzle around and eventually the next piece would fall out, but I wanted to be sure I was being systematic, so I returned the puzzle back to the starting point – minus one piece, and then worked out the moves to remove the second piece.

Once the second piece was removed, the rest were relatively easy to remove. Once I got down to the final 3-4 pieces, I again focused in on how they were connected. I wanted the best chance to reassemble this, so was trying to really focus and remember these crucial steps.

Once I had it apart, I quickly celebrated and then started reassembly. Thing went pretty smooth. The initial construction – putting the 3 white pieces together was a little trickier than I thought it would be, but once those three were correct, it was fairly simple to add the next 4 brown pieces – and thats where things got tricky.

The second to last piece just didn’t want to go. I had everything lined up correctly, I think, but there didn’t seem to be any room. After a bit of head banging, I shifted some things around and it opened up for me. Adding the final piece was actually easy because I had practiced that move so many times that I had it memorized.

Overall, this was a fun puzzle. It is apparently a knock-off of a Stephane Chomine design – I’d love to check out the original – and in fact, I did find a breakdown of the original design here. Its hard to tell, but I don’t see many (if any) difference between the two which would lead me to thinking this is a straight up copy of Chomine’s work, but I could be wrong on this.

Funzzle Epsilon

I’ve had the Funzzle Epsilon sitting in a box for a few weeks and last night I decided to give it a go. I don’t have a ton of experience with Burr puzzles, But, I enjoyed the Funzzle Beta, so lets see how this one goes.

Like the other funzzle puzzles this one is made of bamboo. I don’t mind the bamboo – it feels a little cheap, but having some good inexpensive puzzles available is a good thing – I can always buy a pricier Burr if I want.

Anyway, the first 15 minutes with this puzzle was a bit frustrating. One piece falls out immediately, which inspires confidence, but it is quickly dissolved by the roadblock ahead. I fiddled and fiddled with it and came away with only a few possible moves. I couldn’t seem to find any way to free up any more pieces, everything was locked into place regardless of the combinations I chose. So, I put it down.

Later on I returned with renewed focus – once again, I challenged myself to start trying new things, even if they didn’t seem likely. As per usual, this little challenge helped me get the next move. It seems that a rotation is necessary to free up the next piece. After this rotation, I then had many options for movement. It was at this point that I began to fear putting it back together. It started feeling really complicated as to what pieces were moving – As the puzzle gets looser, it becomes harder to keep track of the movements. So, I put it back together, numbered the pieces, slowed down and started taking notes.

I was able to get back to the earlier position and then very carefully moved pieces and kept track of what I was doing. The goal was to figure out how it worked so that I could put it back together – is this cheating? I don’t know what other people think, but I don’t consider it cheating. I’m speeding up the process at which I figure the puzzle out – it seems efficient, but not rule breaking.

Funzzle Epsilon ready to solve — Ready to start pulling pieces out, notes in the background.

A few moves later and I was able to free up all the pieces. As usual, the feeling of solving a puzzle is fantastic and this was no let down. Once the pieces were removed, I breathed a sigh of relief and then assembled it back together. Assembly was pretty easy due to the fact that I had the pieces numbered, I had notes, and also pictures of the near-final state. Maybe the next challenge will be to erase all marks, put away the notes and camera and see how well I do without any aids…

Funzzle Epsilon Solved — The pieces have been removed. You can see my labels on the puzzle.

Overall, I enjoyed this puzzle and I think I may purchase more burr types in the future because they are pretty fun to work out.