Still Yet Another Burr That's Not A Burr!

Sorry folks for a delayed post as I was on a family vacation to Taiwan...and had too much luggage to bring any puzzles along.

Well, here's yet another pseudo-burr, this time another variation of Ray Stanton's Slideways Burr series, after his Slideways Burr and Double Slideways Burr. This one is called the Quad Slideways Burr (QSB). The QSB was Ray's IPP36 Exchange Puzzle. Made of Cherry, Maple and Mahogany, it was produced for Ray by Pelikan Puzzles with great craftsmanship as per normal. The QSB measures about 8cm all around, a good and necessary size for handling this type of puzzle.

The QSB looks to be made up of many pieces but in reality comprise only 4 pieces each with slanted cuts and notches. Two of the larger pieces are actually several smaller pieces glued together. It is a co-ordinate motion puzzle and the object is to take it apart and re-assemble it.

I had difficulty with the Double Slideways Burr and so I took careful pains with this one to slowly "disentangle" the QSB...so that the pieces don't just fall apart suddenly, as usually happen to many co-ordinate motion puzzles. The high average 85% humidity of Singapore ensured that the sliding apart was snug but sufficiently smooth and allowed me to make small incremental movements. The puzzle expanded right to the point where one of the two smaller pieces fell apart, followed by the others. 

Its a good thing that Pelikan manufactured the QSB in such a way that the three opposing pairs of faces on the sides of the QSB feature a different type wood; which makes the identification and orientation of the pieces for re-assembly easier...at least I knew how the pieces were going to come together. Unlike the earlier Double Slideways Burr, which I needed the wifey's help to hold the pieces (there were 6!) this one I could comfortably manage on my own, sans wife's hands. Finding that single point, ie sweet-spot where all the 4 pieces started sliding back together to form the original shape was actually not as difficult as I had expected. All said and done, this was a pretty fast solve!

As far as I can tell, the QSB is not listed on sale on the Pelikan site. But Ray may have some extra copies left for sale if anyone is interested.