TetraParquet

Here's another interesting co-ordinate motion puzzle I played with earlier in the week. Both in terms of the puzzle design and the physical shape. Anyway I needed something less stressful after my struggle with the Optiborn.

TetraParquet was Stan Issacs' IPP34 Exchange Puzzle in London last year. The puzzle is triangular shaped and consists of six (also triangular shaped) pieces. Its called "TetraParquet" because the puzzle has four faces, and each face consist of a further three triangular faces. It was both designed and made by Wayne Daniel out of exotic woods; which I think is Maple, Paduak and Walnut. The woods give it a symmetrical 3-colour contrast. Construction, fit and finish is very good and everything slides smoothly. Reminds me of the Cast Delta, but in 3-dimensions.

Object of the puzzle is to take apart the six pieces and reassemble. Each of the six pieces have triangular "plates" glued and attached to the edges. These plates are the connectors between the pieces which holds and "lock" the puzzle in place. Very delicate looking parts!

Taking apart is not too difficult (unlike the Pennyhedron puzzles reviewed previous). Some manipulation and you can begin the feel the joints coming apart as the pieces start to split. Putting it together is harder as the pieces only fit together one way (meaning you can't interchange the positions of the pieces since the plates can fit into adjoining pieces only if the pieces are correctly matched). You start off by building two halves and then bring them together. There is then a need to maintain the six pieces slightly apart (not too far that they are totally separate) and slowly ease the six towards each other. Tricky and it took me a bit of fiddling to finally get the puzzle back into the solved state. 

Not a overly difficult puzzle by any means, but certainly it displays very nicely!