Some bolts

The bolt puzzles are a nice market inside the nice market that are puzzles.

Indeed, not a lot designers made trick bolts (that the name of puzzle bolts) and even the famous ones don't implement a lot of things inside a bolt. Well....because of the size, it's obvious that you cannot have a lot of things inside a bolt.

The most famous designer is Rocky Chiaro who stopped making puzzle. Wil Strijbos also made some big bolts. Both designer can be considered as "premium bolts". For cheaper bolts, this review is for you.

I will quickly review 3 bolts. In terms of difficulty, they are very easy, with still an increase of difficulty among them.

Trick Bolt #1

A very easy trick bolt, actually it's more a trick than a "real" puzzle. It should not take that long, even for newbies. This also depends on how the previous solver reassembled the puzzle...

Trick Bolt #3

This is the most difficult among the series. So far this bolt has a "unique" mechanism, ie: I have not seen so far the same mechanism in a trick bolt puzzle. So a good surprise. Took me like 30 seconds to solve though :)

Trick Bolt #2

A nice bolt, easy, but I would say still a bit trickly to fidle as it can jammed. I mean not "blocked" nor been broken, but just things things not properly aligned can cause the puzzle to not open :)

I would recommend these puzzles more for children or newcommers to puzzles as they won't challenge you a lot. Still, they are nice and will display well in any metal / trick bolts collection !

If you want to get all the 3 and have a reduced price: you can find them on Puzzle Master webshop

NANAB

Strange name for a trick bolt (even if some designers have used us to strange names as well), but actually NANAB means "Not Another Nut And Bolt". And indeed it's a different mechanism than for other trick bolts.

The bolt is initially packed in a small look-like pharmaceuticals container but I assure you, it will not heal your addiction to puzzles ;-)

So here we are with a bolt, a nut and a washer, and the goal is simply to free the washer.
It's clearly indicated not to use any force with the nut to avoid spoiling.

Indeed you cannot see (but guess pretty well the mechanism) and by using force to free the nut, then you will be able to see the mechanism and perhaps losing parts of the mechanism....

Definitely not a high challenge to solve it, but actually most trick bolts are not the most complicated puzzles and you usually solve them pretty quickly. However, a nice puzzle and highly collector puzzle, not only because the craftman deceased some time ago but also because Frank Chambers worked more with corian than metal.

Heavy bolts: they may hide a secret...

If you like metal puzzles, if you like trick bolts and if you like Strijbos's puzzles, these 2 puzzles are for you!

Let's begin by their shape: well they look like big bolts, but pretty heavy bolts.
You know that you won't be able (unintentionally!) to damage them.
The goal is to remove the washer but the nut does not move, and here begins the puzzling part :-)

Hard to distinguish which bolt it is...

You can distinguish the Nipple bolt by the small ball at the bottom of the puzzle. Moreover, the Low number bolt has smaller protuberances on the nut.

These 2 puzzles have a different solution and they don't require external tools (however, for Low number bolt external tools help, but are not needed for solving the bolt!)

Both puzzles have a simple mechanism, but you know with Wil Strijbos, simple mechanism often means hard puzzles :)

For the price and the quality, I would advise you to buy them when Wil has some to offer.
You just need to wait for his new newsletter. By the way, it's been long time since we've not had any newsletter... :-) Big surprises may come sooner