Friday 14 October 2011

Just Six

This 6 block burr puzzle was acquired from the Yallingup Maze as in my previous post on The Cube. Again it is made by Mr Puzzle Australia of cedar stained radiata wood. Externally, this puzzle seems to be similar to the Sly Burr on the Mr Puzzle Australia site and the wood there used by the Sly Burr is different. This is where any similarity ends; Allard has commented "the Sly Burr really lives up to its name" (Allard, thanks!). The package description states that this puzzle was sold as the The Small Devil's Hoof in its earlier incarnations. It is a fairly large burr of around  90mm square. The puzzle was actually available in either sharp edged or bevel edged and I chose the latter. Again, overall quality is very good here.

The object of the puzzle is to assemble the 6 blocks (all differently cut) into one interlocking burr. None of the 6 blocks are identical while 1 is a solid piece which locks the puzzle together.

There is obviously a sequential way to assemble the burr but I proceeded with my usual trial and error style. I was actually able to solve this burr within a matter of minutes even though this puzzle has a difficulty rating of 7/10; surprise surprise!! After solving it, I took a look at the solution and true enough, the steps were laid out in a particular order. Personally I think the puzzle is not so complicated that one cannot solve it by trying different interlocking configurations to see which works since its only 6 pieces and the relatively large size of the blocks allows for easy handling. After my earlier struggle with The Cube, this puzzle provided some welcome consolation! Allard has also written about the Just Six so you may want to check out his comments on it.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Jerry - Just Six is quite different from the Sly Burr - and not just because they're made from different woods ... Sly Burr really lives up to it's name! ;-) allard

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  2. Hi Jerry,

    Nice review thank you. For a description of how to go about solving burrs from scratch you should read this article from Guillaume Largounez on Puzzle Place
    How to solve burrs

    Guillaume is absolutely brilliant and has done a masterful job.

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  3. Hi Allard,

    Externally they appeared similar to me....the way the pieces seem to interlock...thanks for the correction.

    Jerry

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  4. Hi Kevin

    Ahh..Thanks for the info on burr solving!

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  5. hi Jerry :) could you give me the dimesions of the puzzle?

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