The whale puzzle

This puzzle was designed by Carl Hird-Rutter and was published in the Fall 2006 issue #24 of “Scrollsaw” magazine. Normally I am not interesting with jigsaw puzzles. But this puzzle is interlocking. You must remove the eye for dismounting. I made it from 20×20 mm ready stock and it’s small as a key chain puzzle. I didn’t made the third cut shown on the puzzle plane and I made a small modification on the tail. I cut this one with a hand scroll saw.  I made this puzzle according to a free pdf file published in the web site of this magazine. But unfortunately they removed this file from their web site. If you want make your own whale puzzle you can find cutting pattern from here. For this puzzle you must use a square ready stock. You can scale and print this pattern according to your stock size. Top side of pattern show top view and first cut and bottom side of the pattern is side view and second cut. My eye piece is a thin 3 mm ready stock. You can drill eye piece and cut mouth first. Here there are some step by step instructions for making this puzzle. I didn’t made third cut for obtaining a small Jonah. This is your choice.

Jags and hooks

This is an eight piece puzzle. Four piece is tetramino “L” and other four pieces pentomino “Z”.  according an article this puzzle is the earliest rectangular puzzle formed from polyominoes. There are different problems for this puzzle.

1 The aim of the puzzle is making a 6×6 rectangle. This problem has only one solution.
2 You can make also an 3x3x3 cube by using only 3L and and 3Z piece. This problem also has one solution.
3 You can make a 4×9 rectangle. 1 solution again.
4 You can make a 3x3x4 block. this problem has 13 different solution. You can try to find all of them.
5 You can also find different shapes for this parts and make your own booklet.

A very easy puzzle to make and with different problems it is nice to play.

Panama canal

This is an old sliding puzzle. A simple puzzle to make but fun to play. You start with,
CANAMA
PANAL     empty square at bottom right
And you try to make,
PANAMA
CANAL  by sliding puzzle pieces. The solution of this puzzle require minimum 21 moves. I cut puzzle pieces from 30 x 10 mm ready stock. Each puzzle piece is 30x30x10 mm. For making the try, I used 10×10 mm ready stock and 10 mm plywood. If you round corners a little and chamfer all edges, pieces will slide better. For sliding puzzles, ı advise making the try 2-3 mm bigger than total pieces dimensions. If you want play and test before making this one, you can play online here.

 

Instant insanity

This is a well known and popular puzzle. Invented or patented by F.A.Schosow in 1900. Puzzle patent PDF is here. After produced with different names and shapes by different companies. This puzzle consists of four separate cubes. On each side of a cube there is a color or a symbol. There are four colors( or symbol) for four cube version. The aim of this puzzle is to put the cubes on top of one another in a tower such that each side of the tower will have one from each color (or shape). The colors of top, bottom and hidden faces aren’t important.  I like share here my home made examples. Puzzle pieces are below,

I made this puzzle from 30×30 mm wooden cubes. I cut them from a 30×30 mm ready stock with my hand miter saw. For ornaments my old technical drawing stencils was very useful. I painted them with color gel pens and applied very thin lacquer. I made also some other versions,

Example on the left has stand and I drilled each cube center. But this version isn’t good to play, second version is made from plastic school cubes. I drilled spots on faces. very easy to make.

This puzzle has also 5 and 6 cube variations produced with different commercial names. Five cube version has five color(or shape) and six cube version has six color (or shape). You can find all information for 5 and 6 cube versions and method for solving them from here.

You can make ornaments on each face also by wood burning. You can see some nice vintage examples from  J.A Storer page.

 

Big wafers

This puzzle is similar to “Small wafers”. This puzzle has 7 pieces and you must make an 8×8 square. Material thickness is 8 mm and each square is 15 mm. Puzzle pieces are here.

You can make all pieces by cutting two wooden 2a and 3a wooden strip. I hope you like them.

Small wafers

After very long time, yesterday I returned back to my workshop for making my two new puzzle design. This puzzle has six pieces. The aim of this puzzle is making a 7×7 square. Puzzle pieces are here,

Making this puzzle is easy. Because all parts has only two different width. You can set your table saw two time and cut  2a and 3a wooden strips. After you can cut all parts from this two strips. I cut all pieces with my hand miter saw. Puzzle pieces are small and cutting them with power tools is dangerous if you haven’t special fixtures. I made this two puzzle (with big wafers) in 4 hours. Material thickness isn’t critical. I used 8 mm thick wood. For my puzzles each square dimension is 15 mm. Choosing thickness approximately as half of square dimension make looks better this puzzle. I used mahogany. Looks like chocolate. I like making saw traces on puzzle pieces. I make nearly saw traces to all my puzzle pieces. I make saw traces with my hand miter saw. I set cutting depth to 1 mm. You can make also with a small hand saw. Making saw traces take time. But puzzle pieces with saw traces looks nice. I make also chamfer to all edges with a sanding block. For this puzzle you can make also saw traces only upper side of each piece.

I prefer mostly oil finish. A lot of people prefer varnish or lacquer. You can find comparisons for different finish methods on woodworker web sites. An easy to solve puzzle but in same time very easy to make.

Cubes and planks

I designed and made this puzzle long time ago. For designing this puzzle I am inspired from “Stars and stripes” puzzle designed by Wolfgang Schneider. Thanks from here for his beautiful and original design.

This puzzle has nine pieces. I like this puzzle, because it looks nice and different. The solution isn’t very difficult but force you to think about assembly. This puzzle isn’t a beginner project, because it’s require a precise work. For my puzzle, cube dimensions are 20x20x20 mm. Planks are 20x10x80 mm. You can cut planks 0.2 or 0.3 mm longer according to your working precision. You will need 20 cube and 18 plank. The center of the puzzle and the center of each face is empty. Puzzle pieces are here,

After preparing your cubes and stripes, assembly also require precision. Before fixing cubes to the planks, you must be sure that a plank can enter between two cube. And the two plank of each piece must be perfectly perpendicular. You can make a simple gluing jig from your scrap woods or you can use a small machinist square. You can make also this puzzle with 3D printing like almost everything. 🙂  You can download or preview free PDF file including solution from here. (0.4 MB on secure server box.com)

Spot dice

This puzzle is from the book “Puzzles old and new” of professor Hoffmann. A very easy puzzle to make. You can make this puzzle in a few hours. For making this puzzle I used 20×20 mm beech ready stock. I cut them with my hand miter saw and I drilled some holes. For spots I inserted metal ornaments used in fabric industry. You can find your own solution. You can make also spots by wood burning or painting. Puzzle parts are here,

You can make two type dice with this puzzle,

You can find the solution of this puzzle here.

This puzzle has also an other variation.

You can make two type of dice with this parts.

An easy to make and funny to play. I hope you like them.

Hidden dog and hidden cat puzzles

This two puzzles are normally free print and play puzzles. This puzzles published by Canon Creative Park. Hidden dog puzzle aim to find fifth dog by using four dog and hidden cat puzzle similarly aim to find sixth cat by using five cat.

This two puzzle are very easy to make. I cut them from 3 mm plywood with a jewelry hand saw. But you can cut also easily with a scroll saw. You can use also thin wood, acrylic etc. instead of plywood. But if you don’t have enough time, you can try print and play version too. If you like make your own puzzle, you can download PDF patterns of Hidden dog puzzle from here and Hidden Cat puzzle from here. In the Canon Creative Park web site you can find also other paper puzzle projects. You can make them from paper or from wood. Other puzzle projects from this web site are,

Sliding dog puzzle
Silhouette puzzle (a different kind of tangram)
Checkered cube puzzle
Christmas puzzle (sliding puzzle)
Halloween puzzle (sliding puzzle)

Pinpinix

This puzzle is one of my first original designs. I designed this puzzle first, before 6-7 years ago. It was a hand made design (without using a computer). My aim was designing a puzzle with holes on each face of each pieces. I designed “first pinpinix” and made a copy for myself. Afters 5-6 years I have an occasion for making a computer analyse. I found 30 solution for old pinpinix. I tried to improve my design by computer aid. After some improvements “PINPINIX” has born. This puzzle has only one solution.

You can see this puzzle pieces from Mr.Ishino web site.  If you look closer to the picture and to puzzle pieces, you will say “That two puzzle aren’t same”. But puzzle pieces are same except some craft tricks. There are some extra decorative holes on crafted puzzle.

This puzzle has 9 pieces. Each puzzle pieces is made of 1x1x3 blocks. On ech pieces 8 holes is drilled. (exept piece I with 6 holes). Normally both end of the pieces aren’t usable and there aren’t a hole on design model. But I drilled decorative holes on both end of pieces in same diameter with pin holes.

The pin holes are through holes. And I made chamfer for both end of the pins. When you look to assembled puzzle, It’s difficult to differ fixed pins.

My other craft trick is making holes perpendicular to pins. I drill that holes before mounting pins. And when I mount pins, that holes became closed by pins, but looks like a hole from decorative side. And my last craft trick. I make saw traces on each pices for they looks like made from individual cubes.

This puzzle include only one piece that hasn’t a hole on center cube. If you drill two hole to the center of this piece, you can obtain a puzzle with 30 solution. A less difficult, more decorative design.

If you like make a copy for your collection it’s an easy project. I cut 9 pieces (20x20x60 mm), pin holes are 6 mm and other holes are 6,5 mm.  Here there is a video of a copy of this puzzle made by one of my readers.