I’m just back from IPP38 and this year I participated in the Puzzle Exchange. I’m still kind of reeling at the fact that I came home with two boxes stuffed with great puzzles. Seventy-eight of us swapped puzzles with each other and there are some truly beautiful and ingenious puzzles in there. My exchange puzzle was a sliding block puzzle which is a new genre for me. Here’s a picture of it: One thing that’s […]
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A Little Model #360 News (UPDATED 8/16/18)
Just a quick update on the Model #360 puzzle. I am sold out on my first batch but plan to produce some more this weekend. My apologies if you went to my Etsy store and couldn’t find the puzzle – try again next week. The good news is you can also buy them in person or online at Eureka! Puzzles in Brookline, MA, USA Also, I shipped some to my good friends at: Oy Sloyd Ab […]
MoreModel #360 is Ready
They said it couldn’t be done! They said it would cost millions of lives! They said I was crazy to try! Well, I showed them! Mwa-ha-ha-ha! Model #360 is finally done: And here’s a picture of the top showing the logo with the blue ink that takes me forever to add: It’s pretty hefty by the way, 11 1/2 ounces (325 grams). I have enough metal parts to make a hundred in total but will […]
MoreWebsite Housekeeping
Yesterday I made a bunch of changes to the Pyrigan website that temporarily made it inaccessible or made it render incorrectly. (I moved it to a new hosting service provider, Bluehost; I added SSL support so it now connects to “https://pyrigan.com” and shows a happy closed lock icon in the URL bar; and I updated and tweaked my WordPress theme to make it look a little snappier.) Now that I’m writing it down, that doesn’t sound […]
MoreModel #360 Update
Hooray! I received the first sample of Model #360 back from my machine shop this weekend and, in my humble opinion, it looks great. The nickel-plating turned out the way I was hoping. Here’s a shot of the top: My plan is to fill the engraved logo with turquoise-colored ink and hopefully that won’t be as ridiculously labor-intensive as the red ink was on Model #808. Here’s the bottom: Here’s the front: […]
MoreStewart Coffin’s #167 “Cruiser”
As I mentioned in my October post, I’ve been having fun making puzzles using designs I found on the web and one of them is Stewart Coffin’s 2D packing puzzle, #167, a.k.a. “Cruiser”. I’ve shown it to friends and family and it’s been a big hit so I reached out to Stewart about selling them. We exchanged some emails and met so I could show him the finished product: He agreed! I have his permission […]
MoreModel #360
I’ve been plugging away at my next puzzle, Model #360, for some time now. I made the first prototype out of wood, oak I think, back in the late 1990’s and it was pretty bulky. It sat in a box until I found a machinist to make me some slimmer models from delrin. Then I changed jobs and other interests and responsibilities consumed my time so it sat on a metaphorical shelf for another couple […]
MoreSome Fun DIY Puzzles
I was wandering around the web recently, looking at various websites devoted to puzzle collections, puzzle designs, puzzle math, etc., and found several that were simple enough for me to fabricate myself. The first one I’ll talk about is the “Blossom” puzzle by Bernhard Wiezorke and here’s a link to a description of it on John Rausch’s amazing website: http://www.puzzleworld.org/puzzleworld/puz/blossom.htm. As John put it, “Unbelievably, the four ‘L’ shaped pieces hold together after the last piece […]
MoreUpdate on Model #808
I have a couple of things to report about my Model #808 puzzle. First of all, I’m sold out (!). I’m kind of in shock because I had expected to sell two or three of them a month for the next couple of years, not all 106 of them in eleven weeks. Second, if you’re trying to find one, I would suggest checking with these fantastic puzzle stores who have the #808 for sale: Eureka! […]
MorePuzzler in Paradise
I attended my first IPP earlier this month and had a terrific time. First and foremost, the people are just fantastic: generous, imaginative, super smart, just great people. The huge support and welcome I received as a newbie just floored me with outright puzzle gifts, advice on how to get the most out of the event, suggestions on who to talk to for help on my puzzle ideas, encouragement to participate in the Puzzle Exchange […]
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