Puzzlemad New Additions: She says it's been a BAD week!

.....But I would say it has been a VERY good week indeed!

A week or so ago the first doctor of wood produced a lovely update in which he tempted us all with many lovely things! I missed out on one that I wanted but was lucky enough to manage to get a copy of the Chicken puzzle designed by Olexandre Kapkan and made from Yellowheart and Cherry. Apparently it even has an egg inside! On the right is the truly gorgeous Visible burr designed by the incredible Bill Cutler and made from Canarywood, Purpleheart and Paduak - it is truly gorgeous! I paid a small supplemet to have it delivered assembled because I wanted the experience that Bill originally intended:

I like to design burrs which are difficult to take apart. This requires irregular notches in the pieces, and I usually like to hide these in the interior of the puzzle. With the Visible Burr, I decided to make all of the notches visible to the solver. Solution of this puzzle can thus be done by analyzing the notches, rather then by using trial-and-error

I can't wait to play!

Despite the complexity of the design, it turns beautifully! I suspect that this might well become one of the puzzles of 2015! It is an amazing challenge. I've only solved it twice so far and certainly not mastered it!

Poc Box and Lox Box from Yavuz Demirrhan

My good friend Yavuz sold me 2 of his recent beautiful creations. They are simple burr pieces locked into a complex box! Beautifully made using contrasting woods which smell divine! The Pox box on the left has level 7.14.7.3 to remove the 4 burr pieces and the Lox Box is much more complex requiring 33.7.4.3 moves to solve. Can't wait to play - the wood has a lovely texture to it!

Next up we have a new twisty puzzle from a newcomer to the market - Lim Cubes has produced the Dreidel 3x3: