Five puzzlers in Ohio

After we left Illinois, we drove a much shorter day. I think it was only 6 hours to Dayton. I forgot about the time change though and was surprised at one point to see that I had driven longer than I thought.  :) We checked into a hotel and decided upon a meeting place that was only a 10 minute walk away.  Why? Because I wanted a glass of wine too.  It's not fair that I have to drive all this way and not get a drink during a puzzle meet up.  Besides, if it were a late night, I didn't want to drive far in the dark.  On the walk over, George got a bit too close to the Canadian geese and they gave chase.

I know better from childhood and gave them a wide path.

We met up with three gents from the Mechanical Puzzlers Discord and had a great time.  I'm terrible at names, so I'll use their discord names here.  Tacroy brought along a puzzle game he had made and gifted it to us.  We played a round (sorry about the wait guys) and it was really fun.  

After we finished, a couple came over and asked the name so they could get a copy.  It is available on Amazon. 

TheRigaletto was there as was Piker B. We played with quite a few puzzles that they brought along, but mostly just chatted.  In the end, I bought a few puzzles and was gifted a new prototype that is pretty cool. It was getting late, so we all took our leave. The guys very kindly drove us back to the hotel so we didn't have to deal with those mean geese again. Which reminds me, I was told a joke.  "Why are Canadians so nice? To make up for their geese." Sorry folks, I was having so much fun I forgot to take photos.

The next day we were to meet Tom Lensch at his house.  I got crossed messages and thought we were to come after 1.  Turns out poor Tom was up since 7!  When he texted me, I was out running errands.  I hurried back to the hotel picked up George and we drove the 5 minutes to Tom's house.  

We spent the day enjoying our friends company, doing a bit of playing of puzzles, and just chatting away.  

That evening while George solved puzzles and I bothered the folks over on discord to see what Tom had, we watched a tv program about robot fighting.  It was the funniest thing.  Tom really enjoys it, and I was laughing along.  After a while, I began to understand some of the goings on and even rooted for an underdog team who of course lost. 

Of course, no visit is complete without heading to the workshop. 

The next day was Saturday and we spent the day sorting through puzzles, fixing puzzles, solving puzzles.  You name it. It was a puzzling day.  Why all this you ask?  Because on Sunday...

Tom invited us to go with him to Cincinnati to a woodworkers meeting where he was giving a talk on puzzle building.  I recorded it and it is available for your viewing pleasure on my youtube channel.  I will warn you, there are a few spoilers on there, and you may notice a few plants in the audience. 

After we finished our visit with Tom, we then drove to Bexley where we met our friend John Rausch.  Here we spent a bit of time looking at the puzzles he has on display.

He also told me of a few that I should look for in the future.  He's a wealth of information and I picked his brains when I had the chance.  John very nicely gave us a book on puzzle vessels that we didn't have along with a freaky optical illusion and a few of his rope puzzles.  We went to a local sushi place for and early dinner and it was another way too short visit with friends.  

On to Ithaca New York followed shortly there after by a visit to the Rochester area and finally on Thursday we will be in Boston. If any of you are in the area, at 2 pm on Thursday there will be a bit of a puzzle gathering at Eureka Puzzles shop. Stop by and say hello. 

On the 20th day of Advent

 George got a snake!  He really liked it, I could tell.  He immediately ran into the garage to get his tiny light so he could work out how the puzzle was linked together. This one has a spring inside. His immediate question was do you have one of these, I want to destroy this one.  This is high praise.  

The Puzzle Advent Tree© held a caramel box made by Tom Lensch.  As usual, his work is stunning.  George didn't need to put it into Burr Tools as we've had a copy of this puzzle for quite some time now.  

When Tom offered this puzzle to me last month, I snagged it up right away.  I knew we just had to have it to add to the collection. His work is just lovely.

Until tomorrow, Happy Puzzling

On the 18th Day of Advent

 Good gosh!  What a disaster!  We lost day 18 of the twisty puzzle calendar.  I'm not kidding. It's just not there.  Perhaps he opened it early, but the number of puzzles matches up. This is curious.  

He got his day 18 Puzzle Advent Tree© gift and hell has frozen over! George did not put it into Burr tools.  He said it was so easy there was no need for it.  Today he got a nice little puzzle from Tom Lensch.  I'm glad he enjoyed it without the need for technology.  But he did put them in the program anyway for our future data base.

I still haven't had time to do any of the jigsaws as I have been preparing for our up-coming trip.  I am writing this post at 2 am because it is my only real free time.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. Until then, Happy Puzzling!

Hanayama Puzzles

One of the most loved sets of metal puzzles come from Hanayama.  The company has been making toys and games in the 1930's but are probably best known for their metal puzzles.  These puzzles are all relatively small.  They fit in a box that measures 75x119x45mm and will never be larger than that.  They have a difficulty level from 1-6 and the largest number of pieces a puzzle can have is 6. (Or so I've been told). 

Usually there are 4 puzzle releases a year.  Sadly with COVID-19 going around there won't be a new release until the autumn.  For those who are wondering, I've seen on the web that it should be cast heart designed by Scott Elliot.  This will be the second puzzle of his card suit series that they have made. Hopefully the rest will follow. 

We have the entire collection of Hanayama Cast Puzzles many of which George prototyped.  Because of our vast collection, we had a table custom made to hold the pieces in a displayable and playable manner.  Each puzzle is placed according to difficulty level or 'specialization'.  Over the years, the company has produced a number of different themes.  There are 4 puzzles in the Disney set, 4 in the Ultraman set, and 6 ocean themed puzzles in both normal and keychain sizes.  Hanayama also made a set of phone strap puzzles. I honestly don't know the total number of designs that were made as they had them in about 5 different packagings.  We have collected quite a few over the years.  If anyone knows the exact number made, I would sure like to know.  The final set in this cabinet are made by Hanayama, but are not cast puzzles.  They are 6 wire disentanglements in the shape of famous places or objects in Japan.  

The final cast puzzles from Hanayama are the Chess pieces. We do not have the set in the table, but rather have had another custom table and boards made for our pieces.  We have a full chess board designed by Henry Dudney.  A sample of this puzzle can be seen here.  Tom Lensch, George Miller made the chess boards. The cards were designed by Vesa Timonen and can be purchased online.  

Of course these puzzles are enjoyed by all who come into Puzzle Palace as they look deceptively simple.  For this reason, we keep a solution book on hand.  I'm still in need of the solution for Cast Rotor and Cast Snow so if anyone has a pdf copy of it, I'd sure be grateful.  

You can watch a video of the table and and explanation of the pieces on my youtube channel.