Crab

Kevin Sadler writes about the wooden Crab puzzle from Pelikan:

“I had to start with this one! It is just so cute! It is stunningly made from Bubinga, Wenge and Ash. This puzzle continues the line of the animal themed puzzles that Jakub and Jaroslav are producing from their own designs. All of these have been Kumiki style puzzles that are interlocking, rather than burr puzzles and have required less in the way of sequential move exploration than many of the burr puzzles have.

I was sort of expecting something along those lines, but very quickly realized that this is actually a framed burr with the exoskeleton of the crab being a frame and the main body being the burr stick. Except these are not traditional burr sticks – some of them are hooked. The exploration of these is great fun with only a few short blind ends and some really interesting moves. I did get stuck for a little while towards the end of the first piece removal because I was not looking at it properly, but found my way after a short break. After that short break, I had my first piece removed and then the rest were removed relatively easily after that – the level given to me by Burrtools is 19.6.3.3.2 which is perfect for me. Having done my usual to and fro approach to the disassembly and retained the orientation of the pieces as they came out, I was even able to reassemble it all the way to the beginning from memory, giving me a huge sense of achievement. I think that if the pieces were scrambled, then only the very best of you would be able to manage this assembly from scratch."

Material: Bubinga, Ash, Wenge