Sunday 18 October 2015

What a gift!!!

S/M 24
A very good friend recently decided that he had no use for a few puzzles in his collection and so he offered them to me knowing how much I love burr and interlocking puzzles. I offered to pay for them but as is his way he completely refused and they turned up in the post recently. I don't know how to thank him enough - I am forever in his debt but know that he will never want to collect that debt! Above is the S/M 24 puzzle designed by Bill Cutler and beautifully made by Jerry McFarland from Walnut. Bill states:

"For most burr shapes, such as the 6-piece burr, if you have no internal holes, then the first piece that moves will come out all the way. This is because the burr shape is 'rectilinearly convex'. This is not true for the standard 24-piece burr shape. I  decided to design a 24-piece burr in which:1) there are no internal holes2) the pieces are all notchable3) many moves are required to remove the first piece 
It takes 7 moves to remove the first piece"
So far I have only found the first 2 moves!

Wausau 81
Wausau 82
These 2 puzzles are the Wausau 81 and 82 puzzles (also designed by Bill and made by Jerry) - they now complete the set of 4 in my collection. I bought and wrote about the first 2 that I obtained way back in 2011 (Wausau 83 here and Wausau 84 here). These two puzzles were also gifts from my amazing friend and were solved very quickly after I received them using lock-picking techniques! I now need to rearrange my main display to make space for them!