Lollipop puzzle

This puzzle is very similar to Dumb-bell puzzle. For craft tips you can read Dumb-bell puzzle. The aim of the puzzle is removing the ring.

If you want make your own puzzle this small drawing can help you,

Free the bee puzzle

Hello again after long time. I can’t find time to enter to my workshop for long time. A few days ago I found this wooden bee spoons for a very cheap price (almost wood price) in a local shop discount and I bought them for making this easy and well known puzzle with a different funny theme. The aim of this puzzle as puzzle name says to free small wooden bee. (or a ring if you like). Puzzle pieces are here,

The bee is made of two piece and has a function like a ring. If you are lazy like me you can use a ring instead of making a wooden bee. I cut the bee from 3 mm plywood and mahogany ring piece was a small scrap on my workshop desk (about 20x15x15 mm)I glued the bee. I drilled 3 mm holes to the bottom of honey spoons.

If you want make your own puzzles my approximate dimensions are here,

If you can find cheap honey spoons you can make a simplified version of this puzzle as lollipop puzzle.

 

Turtles puzzle

Another variation of three hole puzzle that I made . Puzzle pieces and approximate dimensions are here,

For solution and detailed rope arrangement photos you can download or preview my free PDF file from here. (1.27 MB on secure server box.com).

 

Turtle and rabbits puzzle

This is my variation for three hole puzzle. This puzzle is more difficult to solve. The aim of the puzzle is removing center bead from the system. My dimensions for this puzzle is here.

For rope arrangement and solution I hope these photos will be enough.

If you change the rope arrangement you can make a different version of this puzzle, Here version 02 of this puzzle,

Three hole puzzle

Hello to all puzzle friends. After long time finally I can enter to my workshop for a few new puzzles. I was made this puzzle long time ago. This is a very easy puzzle. This puzzle may be a start point for beginners. the aim of the puzzle is removing the bead from the system. After making this puzzle I found this very simple and I decided to make a few variations more difficult. I will share them also with you. If you want make this puzzle my dimensions are here,

I made this puzzle from a 3 mm thick wood piece. But wood thickness isn’t critical. You can use something between 3-10 mm. My bead diameter is about 20 mm. Bead diameter must be smaller than hole diameter. Rope arrangement and solution is below.

 

Stand up African ball puzzle

I made this puzzle also long time ago. If you turn this photo (or this puzzle) upside down, you will see this puzzle is exactly same with African ball puzzle. The aim of this puzzle is transferring the ring to the opposite side. This puzzle is very nice for making as a coffee table puzzle. It looks nice, very easy to make and difficult to solve for your visitors and friends. My puzzle dimensions are here,

If you are planing to make one as a coffee table puzzle you can make a little bigger. I made wooden ring from a wooden dough roller. You can cut it with a scroll saw or you can make something square etc. Rope arrangement is visible from photo. Two end of the rope are fixed to base.

Dumb-bell puzzle

The summer is hot and I am very lazy. I found a lot of small string puzzles in my puzzle storage box. This puzzles are easy to make. I made this puzzle long time ago with very limited workshop possibilities. I bought wooden balls from a craft store. The rod that connect two ball is 10 mm round ready stock. And I made for wooden ring from a wooden dough roller. The aim of this puzzle is removing the ring.

If you want make your own puzzle this small drawing can help you for dimensions.

If you can find wooden beads, you can cut wooden round disks and you can make a puzzle looking like a barbell. This may be a different and nice design.

 

Eight cubes

This puzzle is made of eight cubes. On each small cube there are six different shape (or color) The aim of this puzzle is to arrange eight cubes so each face of the cube will contain same four shape (or color) and all internal touching cube faces will have same shape (or color).  This puzzle is more difficult to solve than you expect. By turning cubes and trying, it’s nearly impossible to find correct solution. For each small cube arrangement there are two way. You can read more about the mathematics of this puzzle from here. I made for myself two different version of this puzzle. I used 30x30x30 mm (11/4″x11/4×11/4) wooden cubes. I cut them from a 30×30 mm stock with a miter saw. For the version on the left I draw shapes with some templates and painted them with an ink pen. For the colored version I draw circles on each cube face and I painted outside of the cubes with black and inside of the circles with color ink pens. You can make also with wood burning or by pattern transfer methods on wood. If you want you can also print labels and you can put labels on school cubes etc. Or you can find your best method.

If you want make your own puzzle, puzzle pieces are here. You can read also more information about this puzzle and you can find the solution of this puzzle from Jaap’s octacube puzzle page. If you follow solution steps you can solve and also you can understand better this puzzle.

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.

Ladybugs

The aim of this puzzle is arranging six tiles for obtaining 7 shape pair. This puzzle is my arrangement for vintage “Matador puzzle”. You can see the original puzzle from Rob’s puzzle page. The original of this puzzle instead of shapes contains half of domino tiles. I like share here my unusual and simple method for making this puzzle. I made puzzle tiles from 3 mm plywood. Each tile is 50×50 mm. Approx. 2×2 inch. For funny looking shapes I used baby dress buttons.

This buttons are cheap and you can find a lot of different shapes. I was bought a lot of them for making game pieces and puzzles. But their back sides aren’t flat. For this reason I cut their back sides with a miniature side cutter. Unfortunately after cutting their back side, still a little plastic remains and I melt this excess plastic with a soldering iron and I obtain nice flat back shapes. Finally I glued them with hot glue to wooden tiles. I applied varnish to wooden tiles after gluing all pieces. If you want make your own puzzle, puzzle pieces are here. You will need to seven different shape.

You can make also this puzzle on cardboard or if you want make a print and play copy of this puzzle you can preview or download this free PDF file (223 KB on secure server box.com) including black and white and color print and play versions of this puzzle.