Augmented Stellation / Vega (Stewart Coffin)

Not so long ago a new puzzle site popped up that was offering excellent hand crafted puzzles for very affordable prices. This site is Wood Wonders, which is run by a skilled woodworker by the name of Brian Menold. Brian has created puzzles from the designs of several prolific puzzle designers, including perhaps the most prolific of them all, Stewart Coffin.

I've ordered a few things from Wood Wonders in the past, and I've seen plenty more ordered by others. Brian's craft skills just seem to be getting better and better, so I thought I'd share my most recent acquisition.

Augmented Stellation - Fully Assembled

Brian sold this Stewart Coffin puzzle under the name of 'Augmented Stellation', although I believe it is the same design as Vega which is number 46 in Stewart's numbering system and was first made in 1972.

Brian made a few different wood combinations in the latest run, and although they all looked great I was lucky enough to get hold of my favourite which is made from a light coloured English sycamore with contrasting tips in walnut. The cuts on this puzzle are spot on, leading to a perfectly snug fit. And the points are sharp!

The puzzle is made up of six identical pieces, and it is essentially the same as the Diagonal Burr that can be found practically everywhere. It is quite tricky if you haven't come across this design before, but very easy if you have. The ends of the pieces have been extended to give the pointed look. I think it looks best when it is take to the very edge of collapse.

I really recommend keeping an eye on Wood Wonders, I'm always eager to see what designs Brian will create next, especially since his creations just seem to be getting better and better.

Almost Apart

In Pieces

Gear Ball (Oskar / Meffert's)

A while back I wrote about a twisty puzzle called the Gear Cube designed by Oskar van Deventer. To this day it is still my absolutely favourite puzzle from the twist genre as it is such a fun puzzle to solve and it looks awesome. Recently Meffert's decided to produce a spherical version of the exact same puzzle, and how could I pass that up?

Gear Ball by Meffert's - Solved

As a puzzle it is essentially exactly the same as the original Gear Cube, so I won't go into that here as you can always check back on the previous post. The only real difference is that where on the Cube I had to add small stickers (Fisher Design) to the inner edge pieces, the Ball comes with those pieces already colour tiled along with all of the other pieces. So out of the box it is technically more difficult that the original Gear Cube.

I've played with (not solved) quite a few twisties now, and honestly this is one of the best turning mass produced puzzles I've come across thus far, which is especially surprising considering it a puzzle based on a geared mechanism! The pieces almost never catch each other, and the black ridges dividing the coloured faces make it nice and easy to quickly turn the sides back and forth. You can also easily remove the square plastic centre caps on each face to loosen or tighten the screws beneath if you feel to, but mine didn't require any fiddling at all.

I really think this is the kind of puzzle that anyone can enjoy, so if you don't already have one I'd suggest adding it to your list. It is currently available from several retailers including HKNowStore and of course Meffert's.

Topless Box (Eric Fuller)

I don't usually manage to blog about a puzzle immediately after its release (mostly because I'm just never that quick off the mark), but I enjoyed this one so much I thought I'd write about it while it was still fresh in my mind.

This is the Topless Box, and it is Eric Fuller's latest contribution to the puzzle box genre. Eric's puzzles always sell out pretty fast, so I always consider myself lucky when I get hold of his creations.

This puzzle was created by Eric as part of the huge 'Apothecary' project, which will see contributions from twelve great puzzle craftsmen combined into one puzzle chest of epic proportions. Definitely one for the books!

Just like many of Eric's previous puzzle boxes the Topless Box looks pretty unassuming at first glance. The main body of the box is made from a very nice striped, quarter-sawn sapele which looks incredible under the light, and the two 'lids' are made from quilted maple. The whole box feels really sturdy, and even Eric said that they were designed with longevity in mind. This was great news for me! Some of Eric's puzzles don't deal well with levels of high humidity, so I've always had to keep them locked away in a specially dehumidified box, but this puzzle looks like it'll work well whatever the weather.

The box starts to look much more interesting as soon as a lid is removed. Now you can see a really nice contrast with the lovely orange-red colour of the padauk.

But now you start to see a problem. The 'lid' has been removed and the box is clearly not open. How odd.

Maybe if we try the other 'lid' then that will be the way into the box.

Nope...that doesn't seem to be the way forward either. And now the name of the box starts to make sense.

As Eric says;

"The box has two lids and neither a top nor a bottom. Figuring out how to deal with that conundrum will hopefully get you on your way..."

When I first saw pictures of this box on Eric's site I built a picture in my head of how I expected it to work, and strangely (because it doesn't happen that often) I turned out to be right! Because of this I actually managed to solve it pretty quickly, certainly in under ten minutes, but I definitely wouldn't take this as an indication of how difficult it is. I expect that if I hadn't had conjured up the correct expectation before its arrival then it would've taken me significantly longer to solve.

I've now been lucky enough to have had the chance to solve a good few of Eric's puzzle boxes, and I still haven't found one that I didn't really enjoy. The Topless Box has many of the great qualities that I look for in a good puzzle box: It looks great (inside and out), it has an excellent build quality (which is to be expected from Eric), and above all else it has a fun and reliable solution. Because of all of these this is actually one of my favourites from Eric thus far.

If you ever get the chance to buy one of Eric's puzzle boxes then honestly don't hesitate, I very much doubt you'll be disappointed.

Half Truncated Cube Build

I've really been wanting to do a proper shape modification on a twisty puzzle for a while now, and I finally managed to get around to doing it!

Now, I have no experience in these things whatsoever, so I picked up all the info I needed from useful sources like the Twistypuzzles.com Forum and Tony Fisher's YouTube Videos. And I was surprised to find that many of the more simple modifications are not actually that difficult to make.

I was given a spare, unloved, standard Rubik's Cube a while ago, and I knew that I would end up using it for my first shape mod. Then I had a look around to see what would be a nice puzzle to make as my first stepping stone into puzzle modding, and I decided to go with a Half Truncated Cube, which is essentially a cube which has had half of its corners removed.

Poor thing had no idea what was coming...

So, I started with a bog standard Rubik's 3x3x3, then I immediately proceeded by hacking off four of the corners!

In order to do this I had to cover the cube in masking tape so that it wouldn't move during cutting. I then drew on the lines I wanted to cut along using a pencil and ruler and checked to make sure everything was in the right place before making any cuts.

A not-quite Rubik's Cube

The cutting was done using my Dremel 300, which was surprisingly easy. The cube spits of some pretty hot plastic shrapnel during cutting, so if you're going to do this make sure you're wearing long sleeves and some kind of eye protection.

Here is the result of the cutting. The cuts don't need to be perfectly clean or accurate, and that would be hard to achieve anyway, instead I didn't cut quite up to where I had drawn the lines.

Once the corners had been removed I could use a flat power sander to sand the corners right up to the lines. This also made sure that the resultant faces were perfectly flat.

Now we have our Half Truncated Cube shape, but there is still the small matter of the fact there are holes in the puzzle, because all those cut pieces were hollow.

Pieces filled with Milliput

This problem is rectified with some wonderful stuff called Milliput. Milliput is a type of epoxy putty. It has the texture of the sticky tac you put posters up on the wall with, and it comes in several different colours. Since my cube was black it seemed best to go with the black variety. You thoroughly mix the epoxy from two parts, then you can use it immediately. I used some water to help with the moulding as it gave the Milliput a kind of clay-like texture which enabled me to get a much smoother finish along the edges of the pieces, and it stopped it from sticking to my fingers.

Each piece of the cube (apart from the centres  needed filling, and this would take a lot of Milliput to achieve. It seemed like such a waste to use so much of the Milliput, so instead I mostly filled the pieces with white sticky tac, then filled the last part up with Milliput. This dramatically reduced the amount of Milliput used.

As you can see I took the cube apart for this bit as it was easier, and this way there was no chance of me accidentally sticking different parts together using the epoxy. I left the parts overnight, and by morning the epoxy was rock hard and ready for sanding again. It actually sets in four hours, but I wanted to be sure.

At this point I could remove the white sticky tac from inside the pieces using the hole at the back of each piece. This way it makes the puzzle much lighter again, and I can reuse the tac for my next project.

Sanded again and sprayed black

As you can probably tell from the picture, I had slightly overfilled each piece with the epoxy to leave a margin of error, so I once again needed to sand the pieces flat. I reassembled the pieces back into their original shape and used the flat power sander to sand off the excess black epoxy.

Sanding black Milliput kind of gives the pieces a grey finish, so to bring back the colour uniformity I gave the whole puzzle a coat of black modelling spray paint. This made the grey pieces black again, and also gave the whole puzzle a nice matte finish.

From a previous project I worked out that it was better to give the puzzle this light coat of spray paint while it was still assembled. A light coat of paint done from a distance will not stick the pieces together at all. It will give the whole puzzle a nice even finish and also the paint won't land on any of the internal edges, so the cube will turn just as well after painting as it did before.

All that was left to do now was to add some new stickers! Luckily, because this is such a popular design for many first-time modders, there were already stickers available. This is lucky because otherwise I would've had to painstakingly measure and cut each sticker by hand, and that would've added many hours onto the build time.

I ordered my stickers from Olivér Nagy who runs a website called Oliver's Stickers. It is a brilliant website! He supplies a massive range of puzzle stickers, and will even make stickers to order if you come up with a new design. So for just over 2 Euros I saved myself having to do a lot of extra work!

The stickers arrived a few days later, and after ten minutes or so of stickering this was the result:

I'm very happy with how my first puzzle mod turned out, plus I had a load of fun making it! The total cost of materials for this build probably came to less than £10, and for that I get a new puzzle for my collection that I can proudly say I made myself.

This certainly won't be my last build, and if you haven't given it a go yourself yet then I highly recommend that you do. You'll have great fun, and there's nothing more satisfying that seeing a puzzle come to life that you've made yourself.

Dutch Cube Day (DCD) 2012 / MPP8

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be able to make it to this years Dutch Cube Day (DCD) event! I was extremely happy to be going as it was to be the first international puzzle event that I have ever attended. A couple of the other Midlands rabble managed to make it last year, and they came back with such good stories and pictures from the event that I just knew I had to make the trip out to the Netherlands this year.

It started with a 4am drive on the Saturday to pick up Ali (a fellow MPPer) and then we were straight off to Luton to catch the plane. I made the slight error of going to the cinema the night before, so to say I was a wee bit tired would be the understatement of the year. But still I was very excited for the day to come, and I think that easily carried me through the whole weekend!

Once myself and Ali had landed in Amsterdam we met up with Allard, Chris, Nigel and Louis (even more fellow MPPers) at the airport. Allard Chris and Nigel had flown in from Birmingham just before us, and Louis caught the train from Eindhoven to meet us there. Louis has made the trip out to the Midlands many times now for our (very) regular MPPs, and it was nice to finally be able to make it out to the Netherlands to meet him there for a change. So many of us Midland lot made the trip out that we decided to combine DCD with the 8th MPP!

The Hotel Lobby

We travelled from the airport to the hotel via train, which was only a short distance away. And as the hotel was right next to the train station, that made the travelling aspect of the trip very laid back. Although I dare to think where I would've ended up if Louis hadn't been there to direct us.

I took a photo of the hotel entrance. It's a terrible photo that doesn't really show anything, and I can only really blame tiredness for that. I kept forgetting to take photos as there was always so much going on, then I'd suddenly remember and start taking loads.....then forget again, and so on.

Off To The DCD Venue

We stopped at the hotel for a while for everyone to settle in, then we met up in the restaurant for a bit of brunch. Right around this time Wil Strijbos and Christiaan Eggermont turned up and joined us for some food before we all headed off to the actual DCD venue to help Wil unpack his wares for the next day. This years event was going to be held at Sint-Maartenscollege in Voorburg, which as luck (or good planning) would have it was only a ten minute walk away from our hotel.

Only a couple of puzzlers had turned up today to set up their stalls for Sunday, including Wil and Bernhard Schweitzer, and as well as helping to unpack we looked through the puzzles that would be available the next day and chatted with everyone there.

A Good Few IPP Exchange Puzzles

After a few hours we all jumped into cars and cabs and made our way over to the home of Rob Hegge, who had kindly offered to entertain a group of unruly puzzlers for the afternoon. Frans de Vreugd and Simon Nightingale were already puzzling away on our arrival, and Rob made us feel very welcome with food and drink, although I think our attention was mostly taken up by his awesome puzzle collection!

An Incredible Puzzle Room

Rob kept us thoroughly perplexed for most of the afternoon. Whenever one puzzle was solved (usually a puzzle box in my case) another one appeared shortly afterwards. He was very trusting and let us try any puzzle that was out on display in the cabinets, although I did try my best to make sure that puzzles went back into the cabinets in the same state that they came out.

I think all of us there managed to find a fair few puzzles that we've never solved or even seen before. I got completely stuck trying to solve the Monkey's Palaquin puzzle box by Shiro Tajima, but happily managed to make my way through a good few other puzzles to make up for it. I have to admit that I spent most of my time working on the puzzle boxes because they are my favourite puzzle type, but there were so many other puzzles there that it was difficult to stick with one puzzle too long as there was always something else I wanted to look at next.

Out For Dinner

After a few hours (probably...I completely lost track of time so have no idea how long we were there), we managed to pry ourselves away from Rob's place and travel en masse (there were eleven of us) to find somewhere nice to have dinner. We dropped our stuff back at the hotel and then proceed to wander the streets with Bernhard at the helm trying to find an Italian restaurant that he remembered. After a few backtracking manoeuvres we arrived at the restaurant and sat ourselves down for some good food, drinks and generally puzzling conversation. Wil would regularly pull a puzzle or perplexing object out of his bag and proceed to hand it around, which always managed to conjure up a fair few laughs. At one point Louis even tried to solve the restaurant wall! He did have a few drinks by this point, although none of them were alcoholic so I'm not sure what his excuse was.

After dinner we all toddled back to the hotel for a very overdue rest to get ourselves ready for the main event in the morning. Most of us hung around in the bar for a few more drinks before heading off to bed.

A Teeny Tiny Bit Puzzling

A few of the guys headed off early the next morning to get to the DCD venue, but I went across an hour or so later with a few others who didn't fancy quite such an early start. 

Upon arrival we signed in and picked up our name badges and the tiniest souvenir puzzle you could ever imagine. I love miniature puzzles, so this little 3D-printed creation by Rich Gain was right up my street, and everyone else there seemed to really like them as well. 

The pretty large main hall was full of puzzlers and their puzzles. Tables and tables of puzzles! I knew to expect quite a few people and puzzles to be there, but I was still surprised by the sheer amount and variety of them!

In The Main Hall

We all split up and started wandering around the room. I kept seeing puzzles that I've been searching for all over the place! And occasionally they were even being sold by the designers themselves! It was great to finally be able to put faces to so many of the puzzlers I talk to regularly online and via emails. It really was a room of some of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. A couple of them were even obliging enough to sign some of their own puzzle designs that I had bought that day.

Oskar And His Creations

It was a real highlight to be able to meet Oskar van Deventer for the first time, and have a play with some of his latest 3D-printed designs. He even brought along a copy of his infamous 17x17x17 cube, although I have a feeling that not too many people attempted a solve while they were there.

Another thing I was very much looking forward to was to picking up a long awaited puzzle from the incredible craftsman Jack Krijnen. I'll write a bit more about that properly later on though as it is well deserving of its own review.

17 x 17 x 17

Marcel Gillen has his own table there selling puzzles  of all types, including some of his own hard to come by designs. Tom van der Zanden was there showing some of his 3D-printed twisty puzzle designs, including his incredible Multidodecahedron, which I was thrilled to finally see 'in the flesh'. Goetz Schwandtner was there, and he brought along several 'N-ary' puzzles (that I really enjoy), including a design called Fidgety Rabbits by Namick Salakhov which was also an entrant in this years IPP Design Competition. I really loved this puzzle, and I made a mental note to track one down for myself eventually.

So many more puzzlers were met, and many many more puzzles were solved. I can't quite get pictures of them all into this post, but if you're interested in seeing the full set of pictures then visit the DCD folder in my puzzle image gallery and you'll find them there.

Speedcubing Finals

At the end of the event we stayed to watch the finals of the Dutch Open speedcubing competition, where we got to see the European record being beaten for a 3x3x3 cube with an average time of just 7.66 seconds! After the event had finished we were all exhausted (and somewhat lighter in terms of our wallets), so we retired back to the hotel to pick up our bags ready to make our way back to the airport and then onto home.

It was a truly incredible weekend, and I can't express enough thanks to everyone there who made it as fun as it was. I met many new puzzlers, and saw many many new puzzles, and somehow a few of them managed to creep back home with me. It was really great fun, and I'm definitely looking forward to making the trip out again next year.

The Puzzles That Somehow Followed Me Home

Glass Nails (Village Games)

Glass Nails - Entangled

Glass Nails - Disentangled

Of all the puzzles in my collection, these are probably the most delicate.
I picked them up a while back on one of my regular trips to Village Games in Camden (London). There were quite a few of these there as I think a batch was made specially for the shop.

As a puzzle this is only really a standard two piece disentanglement, so I won't go into the solving aspect of it. You normally see this type of puzzle pretty much everywhere either made out from simple metal rods or bent nails. Even quite a few Christmas crackers have them in. This version however is made from glass!

I don't know why, but for some reason I find it amusing to have a puzzle that is so well known for being essentially unbreakable made from something as fragile as glass.

I have actually managed to solve it a couple of times as well, but I was pretty nervous in doing so. Really it was added to my collection as more of a curiosity for people to look at and ponder over rather than play with too often.

Still, it's definitely an interesting concept, but I don't think I'd be wanting any more in the collection. I'm nervous enough trying to look after just the one!

Sly Burr (Frank Potts)

Let's face it, there are loads of traditionally shaped 6-piece burrs out there, so for one to stand out from the mahoosive crowd it has to have something in its design to make it really special, and here's one that I think does just that.

Just another 6-piece burr.....or is it?

This is Sly Burr, a design from the mind of Frank Potts which has been brought to life by Brian Young (Mr Puzzle) in Vitex wood (or Papua New Guinean Teak if you prefer). Frank also used this as his exchange puzzle at IPP28 in Prague in 2008. Also, at 6cm across it is a nice size for a burr.

It looks just like a 6-piece burr right? But it really isn't. I could show you a picture of the pieces to prove it...but I won't.

The real joy in this puzzle is working out for yourself just what makes it so special. Since I've had it I have enjoyed giving it over for puzzlers to solve without any directions and watching them get confused almost immediately. They mostly get there shortly afterwards, but it always seems to catch puzzlers out and it gives them a little smile of amusement once it gets moving.

The burr itself is level 9,3 (9 moves to remove the first piece, 3 to remove the second), but the level isn't really the issue. Finding the moves to make in the first place is the real challenge.

As a 'clue' to the solution this is mentioned:

"The hint is in the name...think movies....although working out exactly what the hint tells you about the puzzle may prove just as difficult as doing the burr itself."

After solving the puzzle I just had to ask what the clue is trying to reference to hint at the solution. Frank described the reference as being pretty convoluted, and offered me a nudge in the right direction. After a think (and a bit of Googling) I managed to work out what it was referring to, and I concur in that solving the burr is far easier than trying to work out the clue! If you have this puzzle and fancy an additional challenge then do give it a go for yourself and let me know what you come up with.

I have to admit that normally I'm not really into burr puzzles in general, but this really is a great all-round puzzle. It has few enough pieces to not make it ridiculously difficult, and it has a trick to it that is likely to provide a great 'Ah Ha!' moment to amuse anyone solving it. It is easily one of my absolute favourite burr puzzles, and I'd seriously recommend getting hold of one before they sell out.

You can buy this puzzle directly from the manufacturer, Mr. Puzzle in Australia

Boxed Burr (Tom Lensch)

The Boxed Burr was designed and made by Tom Lensch, and it was also used as his exchange puzzle at IPP17 back in 1997 in San Francisco, and true to his style it is made from wood and well crafted to a perfect fit and finish.

Boxed Burr - Solved

Boxed Burr is made entirely from mahogany, which gives it a lovely colour and a very solid finish

At first glance Boxed Burr looks more like a puzzle box than a burr, and it takes a bit of a strange rotation move to actually remove the first piece (you can see the locking piece one the second picture).
Once the first move is discovered and a piece is removed it becomes much more obvious what kind of puzzle this really is.

It turns out that inside is a standard six-piece burr, but one end of each burr piece is attached to a panel, each of which make up the box shape once they have been correctly assembled. I think it actually looks at it's best with just the first piece removed. The first (locking) piece rotates slightly against its panel, and that allows you to twist it in order to lock it in against the other pieces. I really like puzzles that have the ability to solidly hold themselves in their solved position.

The burr puzzle itself isn't particularly difficult, but having the panels on the pieces makes it a little bit more of a challenge, although not significantly. It shouldn't take an accomplished puzzler too long to find the solution, and I'd even wager that most new puzzlers would be able to solve it with a bit of effort as well.

Although Boxed Burr isn't very difficult to solve it is well worth having just for how fun it is. Plus I think the design is incredibly innovative and aesthetically pleasing as well.

This puzzle came directly from Tom, and that would probably be the best place to start if you were wanting to add one of these to your own collection. Failing that, puzzle auctions are your friends.

Spot The Difference... (Twisties)

Today I wanted to take a quick photo of only the 'twisty' puzzles in my collection. It took longer than expected, but the result is always worth the effort.

After taking the photo I thought it would be fun to take another photo of the same puzzles, but move a few things around.

So here are the two pictures; can you spot the 12 differences, and also name those puzzles?

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

Before...

...and after!

Popplock T7 (Rainer Popp)

It's been a while since I reviewed one of Rainer Popp's very well known series of puzzle locks known as Popplocks, but recently he released his latest creation and I was lucky enough to be able to borrow one for the sake of this review.

Popplock T7 - Rainer Popp

This monster of a puzzle lock is the Popplock T7. After the release of the Popplock T6 which was pretty conservatively made, the T7 goes back to its roots and in conventional Popplock style it is machined from solid brass and stainless steel. It weighs in at almost 1100 grams! Which as a comparison is around the same as three cans of Coke!

Now due to this lock being so large and made from these materials it unfortunately has a price tag to match its epic weight. When first released you could pick up one of these for 280 Euros (~$365/~£225), and no matter which way you look at it is an awful lot of money. But due to the extremely high reputation of Rainer's previous Popplocks, all of them sold out within a very short amount of time, even though Rainer described it as being "pretty much different from all the other locks".

When I was first handed the lock the first thing that immediately shocked me was the weight. I turned it over to look at all sides of it before trying to solve it (when it comes to Popplocks I've made the mistake of overlooking small but important details before, so now I make sure to ignore nothing).

The shackle is huge and solid, and obviously won't budge. Under the shackle is an area of raised brass with a stainless steel centre, which looks a bit like a button but also won't move. There is a large flat circle on one side which can be seen in the picture above, this also looks to be a button of some kind and this one does move slightly upon pressing, but not enough to achieve anything.
In fact the only part that does move on this lock to begin with is the circular knob at the bottom that has been stamped with the Popplock logo. This piece rotates, but not to a full 360 degree turn, it is restricted by something.

It became immediately obvious after a few movements that this puzzle has an internal maze which needs to be navigated in order for it to be solved. I'm only happy to mention this because it is so obvious, but I'll leave you to work out how to navigate this maze for yourselves, and also how to release the shackle. Sadly the solution to this puzzle is in all aspects very simple, it only took me a minute or so to open it the first time.

The real ingenuity in this locks design comes from the internals. The maze that you have to navigate in order to open it can be reconfigured to a design of your own creation. With the tools provided you simply remove the walls of the maze and replace them in the way that you would like. Understandably this doesn't however make the puzzle aspect any more interesting for the owner because they would only be navigating their own maze design, but you could ask someone to replace the maze for you. There is also a 'safety release' on one side of the puzzle in case you accidentally create an unsolvable maze, so you can feel free to get as creative as you like without having to worry too much about locking yourself out of your own puzzle. You will need another of the provided tools to open this release, so it can't just be mistaken as part of the solution.
The mechanics of how you can reconfigure the internal maze on this lock really are a thing of beauty, perfectly made and very well implemented.

Several puzzlers were quite displeased with this lock because it really doesn't live up to its Popplock legacy in terms of difficulty, and this is something I can't disagree with. Regardless of how the internal maze was configured I am confident that I still would've had this lock open in the same very short amount of time. No matter how you judge it this is a very simple puzzle as far as its solution is concerned, not just compared with the other Popplocks, but also considering puzzles in general.

Personally, if I had purchased this lock for the price it sold for I would have been a bit disappointed by its level of difficulty, but I would be happy to overlook it because of the complexity and sheer ingenuity of the internal design.
This is not a puzzle I would ever get out just to solve for fun, but I would be eager to show people how it works and just what makes it such an interesting puzzle.

If you're after a challenge or a puzzle that will give you one of those brilliant 'AH HA!' moments then I'd recommend you save your cash for something else. However, if you would be happy owning one of the best machined puzzle locks out there with what I would consider to be a seriously ingenious internal design, but can overlook the inherent simplicity of the puzzle itself (and have a load of cash lying around)  then you could consider trying to hunt one of these down for yourself.

Puzzle Master currently still have some of these available here: Popplock T7 - Puzzle Master

If you liked this then please have a read of my other Popplock reviews:

• Popplock T2
• Popplock T3
• Popplock T4
• Popplock T5
• Popplock T6