Burrs Galore!

Due to work and other personal commitments, I have not played with or reviewed any puzzles for a while. But during the last several weeks, a number of new wooden burr puzzles arrived, the latest batch from Jakub and Jaroslav Dvorak of Pelikan and Eric Fuller's Cubicdissection.

Clockwise from top left: Unassembled Vectes/Ghidorah (Yavuz Demirhan/Alfons Eyckmans),
Triaxe (Stephane Chomine), Estergon 2 (Yavuz Demirhan),
Columnata 2P3C (Yavuz Demirhan), Cockpit (Osanori Yamamoto),
Ice Pillar (Osanori Yamamoto), unassembled Four Cross Twelve (Guy Brette),
Derek's Half Dozen (Derek Bosch), Centre: unassembled 2-In-1 (Oskar Van Deventer)

Now what was I thinking when I ordered so many puzzles, I am now wondering to myself. Well, for one, I was attracted by some of the very colourful woods used, for example, Eric Fuller's 2-In-1 which uses 12 species of exotic hardwoods. Another reason being I wanted to have a bit more hands-on play with burrs, since I don't own many of them (and absolutely lousy with burrs!)....hmm, but now I am not so sure after looking at this complicated stash.

Virtually all of these are "super expert" level and "many-many-moves-before-the-first piece-can-be-removed" type burrs and interlocking puzzles. I am not even sure which one of these wooden beauties to start with. I still have a backlog of other puzzles which I have yet to touch beyond their unwrapping. If anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to comment.

I think I have bitten off a lot lot more than I can chew. But knowing myself, I would not unduly labour and lose sleep over a puzzle beyond a certain amount of time. I will still enjoy the exploration process of trying to it take apart and re-assembly even if I can't solve the damn thing. So we'll see how it goes with this lot of ten in the weeks, months (or years) to come.