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,

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.

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.

Mortgage puzzle

Save yourself from your bank. The aim of this puzzle is freeing the rope and the wooden man from the card. This puzzle is my arrangement for classic “Red goose puzzle”. You can see a vintage example from here. This puzzle is very easy to make. Instead of wooden man you can use anything bigger than your holes. My puzzle holes are 10 mm.  This puzzle is also  very easy to solve (unfortunately mortgage problems are more complex) and a lot of string puzzle have same principle. But if you need to solution or more information about making this one you can watch this video.

Chess cube

Chess cube is another nice and easy to make puzzle. The aim of this puzzle as you can guess is making a 2x2x2 checkered cube. This puzzle designed by Russian designer Leonid Mochalov. I saw this puzzle in his website. In his web site there are also a lot of mechanical  and mathematical puzzles. I can advise to visit this web site to all puzzle enthusiasts. Thanks from here for this puzzle and for his nice web site.

Making this puzzle is very easy. You must cut or find eight cube. I cut from 20×20 mm ready beech stock with my hand miter saw. I made dots with my wood burning tool. You can paint or you can add labels. If you want you can make also paper cubes and play with them. But school cubes ( some times they sell as inch cubes) are cheap and widely available. Using them with labels or stickers is very easy.

After making this puzzle I tried to solve it. There is only one difficulty as shown on the right side of the photo. If you make 4 sides faces correctly checkered, unfortunately top and bottom faces don’t fit to this pattern perfectly. But in any case a nice and difficult to solve puzzle.