Puzzles from Yukio Hirose

A few years ago I discovered a very nice web site with a lot of beautiful color and pattern match puzzles. Mr. Hirose Yukio is a Japanese puzzle designer and designs very nice puzzles and share them in his web site. I made one for my collection almost all his puzzles. You can visit Mr. Hirose Yukio web site and you can see all his nice puzzle designs. You can also download free patterns from his web site. Mr Hirose also describe a method for making your own puzzles you can read his method and develop your own

Here I will explain my method for making this kind of puzzles. I start by printing puzzle sheets with a laser printer. Laser printer printouts are more durable than inkjets. I prefer using a heavy paper. My printer limit is 160 gr/m2 and I use this limit. For tiles I am using 3 mm grey cardboard. I cut grey cardboard to same size with my sheet (I use A4 sheet 210×297 mm). I apply carpenter glue quickly to grey cardboard and to paper. I fix paper to cardboard with care. You can start from top or bottom side of paper and fix it without trapping air between cardboard and paper. After I place this to a flat surface and under something heavy. I let it to dry. After I glue a wallpaper to the back side of the cardboard. You can see from photo my red wallpaper. You can find very cheap wallpapers from stores. At end of seasons stores makes big discounts for out of production or end of stock products. Now your tiles are ready for cutting I am using a thick metal ruler and a heavy duty craft knife. You must be careful for your fingers.

After making your tiles you can find a nice box for them. I found first box shown on the photo in a small shop for less than 0.5 USD. Other two plastic round box are candy boxes. I made a label on their cover. I am sure you will find your own best method.

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Nine queens puzzle

Eight queens puzzle was one of my old puzzles. When I shared this puzzle I saw nine queens chess puzzle on wiki page.  This was a good puzzle idea and I decided to make a nine queens puzzle. Unfortunately all the solutions that I found on the web was including empty tiles. I tried to find a solution so each tile include a queen. After a few hour my sister found a solution. As you can see from photo there are three type of piece. One piece has a queen on center square. Four piece has a queen on the corner square and four piece with a queen at the center of the edge.  The distribution of tiles looks interesting.

The aim of this puzzle is placing eight chess queens on an 9×9 chessboard so that no two queens threaten each other. For solving this problem, you must place nine wooden tiles so no two queens share the same row, column, or diagonal.For making this puzzle I used 6 mm cherry wood. I cut first a 30 mm strip and after 30×30 mm tiles. I made saw traces with a hand saw. I made spots with my wood burning tool. Tiles are two sided.

This is a very easy to make puzzle. But if you don’t have woodworking possibilities you can download or preview  print and play PDF file including solution from here. (0.4 MB on secure server box.com) You can print and play or you can glue them on thick cardboard. Another easy and durable puzzle making method is printing them on full sheet label and putting them on plastic tiles.

Eight queens puzzle

The aim of this puzzle is placing eight chess queens on an 8×8 chessboard so that no two queens threaten each other. For solving this problem, you must place four wooden tiles so no two queens share the same row, column, or diagonal. You can read more about this puzzle from here. This classical chess puzzle was produced by different companies. This is a very easy to make puzzle and fun to solve. I made this puzzle by using four 40x40x10 mm wooden tile. I made saw traces on each tile and I added spots with a wood burning tool. You can make also by drawing lines and spots with a pen. There is only one important point that the tiles are two sided.

This is a very easy to make puzzle. But if you don’t have woodworking possibilities you can download or preview  print and play PDF file including solution from here. (0.4 MB on secure server box.com) You can print and play or you can glue them on thick cardboard. Another easy and durable puzzle making method is printing them on full sheet label and putting them on plastic tiles.

Three disk puzzle

A simple but nice puzzle. I made this puzzle according to an old patent. This puzzle was designed by A.H.Wheeler in 1910. You can see original puzzle patent US0968218 from here. I made some versions with different art works made by my sister. The aim of this puzzle matching each body with a head. Discs are two sided. I prepared a print and play version of this puzzle with a different art work. If you want make your own puzzle you can preview or download this free PDF print and play file from here. (0.6 MB on secure server box.com)

City square

This small village has only four houses. But unfortunately there isn’t a square. Can you make a square by using this four piece ? The aim of this puzzle is to make a square with this four piece. I designed this puzzle yesterday. After drawing on my computer, I went to my workshop and I found some scrap woods. I made this puzzle from 6 mm mahogany. I cut pieces with a hand miter saw and hand scroll saw in one hour. Puzzle pieces are very small. Each piece is about 50×60 mm. You can cut from any material that you wish with a scroll saw or you can make a laser cut version. This puzzle hasn’t a replay value but you can put pieces in your pocket and have fun with friends. I added to Pdf file also a print and play version. Experienced puzzle enthousiasts can solve this puzzle from picture. Solution is on the last page of the PDF file.

If you want make your own puzzle you can preview or download free PDF file including scroll saw pattern to cut, print and play version and solution from here (0.3 Mb on secure server box.com)

If you want make a laser cut version asci dxf file (you can convert to other file formats)  is here. Red lines are for decoration and white lines for cutting.

Zebra hippo puzzle

Another popular vintage folding puzzle. You can see original from here. This one also invented by H.Edborg and patented in 1943. Patent number is US2327875. You can fold this puzzle for obtaining a zebra or a hippopotamus. Original puzzle illustration is a cow and horse. This paper is two sided too. If you want make your own puzzle free PDF print and play file with instructions is here (1.4 MB on secure server box.com). For solution you can see original puzzle patent.

Fold a red car

This is a popular vintage puzzle invented by H.Edborg in 1942. You can see beautiful original puzzle from here. Patent number is US2327876 Original puzzle has a camel illustration. Old time camels are cars of today. I made a modern illustration for this puzzle. the aim of this puzzle is folding paper so you will obtain a red car. This paper is two sided. If you want make your own puzzle free print and play file with instructions is here (1.6 MB on secure server box.com). For solution you can see original puzzle patent.

Formicarium puzzle

This is my simple match it puzzle design. The aim of this puzzle is making a 5×5 closed loop. This puzzle is made of 25 tiles. I used a formicarium theme. On the photo you can see my hand made version. I made this one by using some engineering drawing tools. A circle template, a ruler and some ink pens. Ants made by using a nut template. After this prototype, for sharing this puzzle here I draw this one with a CAD software. I prefer Draftsight. A very nice free 2D cad software.

If you want make your own puzzle, you can download free print and play PDF file from here. (1.9  MB on secure server box.com.) This file include 4 different version of this puzzle. 4×4 , 5×5, Black and white and color versions are included in this file. You can print on a thick paper, glue on a cardboard and cut with a steel ruler and cutting knife. I prefer 3 mm grey cardboard for this kind of puzzles. Some people prefer printing on full sheet labels instead of gluing the paper on cardboard.

This is a difficult puzzle but funny to play. I hope you like it.