The Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections

[Myrtle]

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Well that last burr seemed a little boring to me so I read up on them some more. It seems solid burrs are easier to make but they require less moves to put together and take apart. The hidden innards of the burr needs "holes" to get interesting lock like combinations which is what I find interesting. So I got to work and made one. This time I made it out of Mahogany instead of the basswood.



This bur is called Philippe Dubois' Burr. Clearly that is the dude that first figured out this crazy thing. My illustration might not show the best angles for all the moves to let you really get it. It is a very interesting puzzle with lots of sliding parts.

There is zero chance I could solve it without a guide to follow. These burr puzzles are scored by difficulty by how many moves are required to get each piece out. The solid burrs like my first burr are just 1 move. This one is 6 moves for the first piece and 4 more moves to get the second piece out! Then the other pieces come out easy. So this burr is scored as a 6.4 the highest possible burr is a 12. One problem with these high level burrs is if you put them together wrong you can never get them apart. Not sure why but I enjoy the thought of giving it to someone and that happening.

I'm pretty sure I am the only one that finds this interesting tho. lol [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I used a beeswax finish I had from before. It is good for cutting boards and it worked nice for this also. Kept the natural look of the wood. This wax also smells like oranges which I thought was cool. Here is a close up pic of the blocks so you can see the finish. These are the "backs" of them as they are the parts that face "out" most of the time so I tried to line up the grain to look the best on those sides.





Here is a link to more info about this burr.

I am pretty happy with the way this one came out and will be giving it away for xmas. I am going to print out a little guide about it and how to solve it so the person can actually enjoy it.

I think I am hooked. lol

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How did you find working with mahogany?

It's one of my favorite woods, and I find it to be reasonably easy to work with.

There is something about the grain of mahogany that I find very attractive, and it takes a light stain pretty well if you want it to.

You might also try playing around with fir flooring, although I don't know if you can find it in 1" thickness? Standard here is 3-3/4" W x 3/4", so if your design will work with that thickness, give it a shot.

Nice work....you must have lot's of patience, skill and love what you're doing!

[Stuey]

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How did you find working with mahogany?

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I was surprised at how easy it was to work with. It seemed easier to work with than the basswood even. The basswood was almost too soft. With out super sharp chisels the basswood would tear or dent instead of cutting it required sanding at the end. With the mahogany I could easily take fine shavings off where I needed to and the cut was so smooth and clean I did not need to sand. The mahogany puzzle came out much better imo. Not sure if the practice from the first puzzle helped or the wood was just more workable.

I will be sure to look into finding some fir. It seems you can make these puzzles from any size wood so long as the width is 1/3 its length. One inch is the desired thickness as it is easier the larger they are. But I plan on trying to make smaller ones once I feel up to the challenge. They might make neat card covers/markers.

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Nice work....you must have lot's of patience, skill and love what you're doing!

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I have lots of patience for most things but as I mentioned before one of the reasons I picked to make these was to build my skill with hand tools as I just started using them. Thanks for the compliments tho it is very encouraging. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[katyseagull]

The mahogany wood with the beeswax finish looks very pretty.

I think once you get real good at these and the smaller ones you should make a jumbo-sized one.

[ethan]

You guys might like Lee Krasnow's work. I went to school with him a ways back, and he's since become one of the best in the world at making these.

[evil twin]

I just saw this and wanted to say what a cool post. I had a small collection of these things as a child and would greatly enjoy quickly putting them together in front of adults who then couldn't even take it apart let alone put it together.

I never thought of building my own though so this could turn out to be something of an inspiring post. Nice job!