Sunday 23 March 2014

A friend indeed

I have mentioned several times that I have a truly wonderful friend who keeps me informed of new puzzles on ebay to buy, advises me of what is worthwhile buying and fantastically makes me beautiful objects to play with! is puzzling skills are incredible and maybe one day I will be as good as him! From my last batch I received a disentanglement that I had never seen before.

Yes! An airplane disentanglement!
The airplane has a shuttle piece on the tail which needs to be removed. I have tried to make my own disentanglements having been given some wire by a retired metallurgist patient of mine but I never managed to produce anything as smooth and beautiful as this. It took me nearly an hour to work out where the exit point was and to dismantle it.

My friend is also a whizz with wood! He monitors Ishino's site and makes many of the puzzles he sees. The cleverest and most elegant ones he often sends to me to play with. This one, Flywheel, from Osanori Yamamoto is particularly clever - it's a turning interlocking shape and requires multiple rotations to assemble it! In fact it is a level 15.3.2 disassembly. To really challenge me, he sent it to me unassembled and frightened me by saying that it took him 3 days to do it!

Just a few bits of wood!
I must have gotten lucky because I managed to put it together in about 1/2 hour - it is very clever indeed! If you have skills with woo then well worth making!

Phew! I didn't let him down!