Coke bottle in a row

You know the guy and his famous metal puzzles? You may also know his bottle puzzles I am sure.
But did you see so many bottles???

7 coke bottles linked with a long rod and locked on each side and inside!!

A lot of care is needed to handle that. First because it's fragile. Then because if you hold the puzzle on each side you apply pressure in the middle of the rod. It would be a pitty to destroy such a beauty:)

You can unlocked the 2 locks on each side, but how to unlock the inside locks?...

You don't have acces to them with your fingers....probably no tools are allowed....

Seriously I am (b)locked... :-(

Any idea?

Plate box by Strijbos

This puzzles was the exchanged puzzle by Wil Strijbos and crafted by Griffoen long long time ago and seems to be pretty rare as it has never popped up at any auctions nor nowhere contrary to supposely rare puzzles that always appear at auction...

Rare means rare, right?...Anyway...

The name of the puzzle suggest that it's composed of plates and we can easily notice that you will have a total of 12 plates to assemble (2 per side of the cube) in an interlocking way.

The box is pretty big but very light. In fact, the material used seems to be not hard woods, but more likely a composite.

If you were to try this puzzle, it would be a more challenging puzzles if it disassemble. Indeed when assembled, it's easy to solve and the first plate is freed after only one move. Then you try to push and puzzle the remaining pieces and at the end: solved!!

Starting with the pieces like below is a way more difficult challenge!

In my opinion, this is an interesting puzzle, I like 2D shapes that make 3D solid at the end. And this puzzle, despite not being made by Strijbos, is associated to him. So in a way, a complete collection of Strijbos' puzzles is nice to have this puzzle.

I am sure that you know Wil's current face. OK. And I am sure you want to see how he looked before. Well, click on the below spoiler button :)

Coke bottle #5

In the series of the coke bottle puzzles, I will review #5.

As usual, the goal is to free the marble that is trapped and you should not need to use external tools.

So here you see a red rod with screw in 2 places and an hexagonal screw that may be useful at some point.

You definitely need a bit of dexterity (especially when you reassemble the puzzle) but you also need to use the tools in the appropriate way.

I liked a lot the steps and I did not find this puzzle fetched contrary to a previous puzzle bottle with a black top. I feel that the tools are used in a clever way.

About the difficulty, I would say it's moderate: not overly difficult, but not that easy. So a nice challenge. I am sure you would like it.

I am sure you have seen that it should not come out that way :-)

To conclude: one of my favourite Strijbos' coke bottle puzzles!

The 3 circles

Among the recent puzzles sold by Wil Strijbos, this one is the other pretty cheap (I reviewed the other one previously). The puzzle is called "the 3 circles"...and is composed of....3 circles! What did you expect :)
And the goal is not to disassemble the circles but to assemble them  to make like a ball shape.
So when you will receive the puzzle, I tell you it's not solved!

How it arrived

In terms of quality, I fear I will tell you the same thing as the previous small puzzle (cross the ball): the quality is way below Wil Strijbos' standards! But you will notice that by yourself if you don't trust me. I feel this is a pitty. Especially because sometime the pieces seem to be able to move uing a bit of force and you don't really know if you should force a bit (because of quality issues) or if you should take another path to move the pieces...

How it looks when disassembled

One may think this is a burr puzzle, I don't think so. But I let more burr-experienced people argue on that :)
This is not a so easy puzzle and you will have to make several attempts. Maybe some rotations are involved?...you never know...
By having a quick look at the pieces, you should see how each piece should go with which piece. The difficulty is to get them all assembled.

How it looks when solved

Despite the poor quality, I think the puzzle has a good puzzling value for its price. And I am sure that the challenge will suit your taste.

Cross the ball

Long time I have not published a quick review of a puzzle, and this time no one has reviewed this puzzle (well, I think so...).

This is a puzzle made by Wil Strijbos (or most likely he has made it by his official Chinese maker) and designed by Mr Gong. (who's that man, by the way??)

Not a usual puzzle sold by Wil as this is one has several colors and is a sliding puzzle compared to the usual "sequencial discovery" puzzles offered by Wil.

What about the quality?
I must admit that the quality is below Wil's standard. Don't get me wrong, this is not bad quality at all. I don't say that. I only say that usually the finish is better. And you will notice that quickly when you hold the puzzle. Some pieces are a bit rounded, and this is not intended for the solution. I guess that this is not the same metal as Wil's usual puzzle. However this is still nice and it's not common to have metal puzzle with several colors!

What about the goal and difficulty?
The goal is to "cross the ball". Despite Wil's picture of the starting point and goal, I did not really understand at a first glance because everything seems to be identical....But if you look more carefully you will notice that the right part of the cross is hidden by a bit of a dark metal piece whereas it's not when the puzzle is solved! The marble is useless you have to take it out to solve the puzzle. This is just intended to keep the pieces in place.

In my opinion there are 2 challenges compared to the only challenge given by Wil.

The first challenge is shown by the picture and is not that difficult to be done. You have to move the pieces with several kind of moves and it should not take you too long to solve and reassemble.

First challenge done!!

What about the second challenge?
Well: separate all pieces and then reassemble them. For that challenge, this is not that straight forward to solve, you will need many more moves. I almost thought it was impossible and that the pieces had been crafted in such a special way not to be separated. But I was wrong, you can separate the pieces!!
I advise you to take pictures of the disassembly, because reassembling the pieces will be a harder challenge...

2nd challenge done!!

To conclude, this is a nice puzzle. I like the colors, I like that this is not an usual puzzle. I also like the pretty small price (compared to the usual Wil's prices). I like a bit less the quality. But I would still advise you to buy it if you like sliding puzzles and you want to add a bit of metal to your collection.

Exchange bottle

Exchanged by Wil Strijbos, this puzzle have some uncommon features.

First, it differs from Wil's usual bottle that are in glass. Secondly this one has 2 goals. And finally, guess what? The bottle is normally used for pee tests....!!

OK so one goal is to free the ball. The second goal is to put the metal ring that is inside same as in the right picture. Indeed at the beginning does not "cover" the shackle of the lock but only goes through.
The bottom of the bottle has a hole and maybe this can be useful. Ah...and I forgot to mention, don't even try to open the bottle: this has been glued!! What did you expect??
Like another of Wil's bottles, the keys are outside. Surely they will be useful in some ways.

So despite its original look and its "must-have" value for a collector, what about the solving process?
Tying to not spoil, I would say that this is a dificult puzzle. Of course, you have to get clever ideas in the right moments, but even if you have these ideas, the puzzles requires dexterity, I would even say a pretty hard dexterity, especially for one goal.
And you have also to pay attention to not use brute force and be careful to avoid damaging the plexi. This is not a strong plexi, so be careful. Not to put in every hands...

What do I think about this puzzle? I like it a lot...but I would have liked even more with less dexterity (and why not more steps) and in a thicker bottle.
In Wil's flickr you can see some other bottles. A strange one has even a lot of things inside...would be worth the case to make some more! :-)

Revenge lock

No! It's not a puzzle made by Gary Foshee, even if it has some shares features: a lock with no key nor no keyholes, and a rod in the center of the lock that can be moved up or down and that is blocked sometimes.

Actually this is a puzzle made by Wil Strijbos long time ago (no idea when...) with a pretty funny name. One can try to think out why this name. I have some assumptions: maybe Wil could not solve the lunatic lock crafted by Gary Foshee and wanted to take his revenge on him by crafting an even more difficult trick lock? Or maybe Wil was challenged to craft a trick lock, but failed and took his revenge by releasing this puzzle...other assumptions in the audience??

When playing with this puzzle you will notice the common features with the lunatic lock and then you will try to repeat the same steps...Well, this is a more difficult puzzle and you will see a more complex mechanism once opened (yes, when it's opened, you can clearly see what's inside!).

No doubt, you will have a lot of fun solving this one and get your "ah-ha" moments and your "what's wrong with that" moments as well :-)

You are not really blind when solving with the puzzles as you can get some hints from it. First you will hear things ratling from the inside. Then, you will see something moving in the hole on a side of the lock. Sometimes it moves, sometimes not. Maybe it's related with the solution or maybe it's just a trap.

Being a fan of trick locks, I think this is a nice addition to any collection and it's highly collectible! Especially when you know that it was crafted by Wil Strijbos, who is not used at all to crafting trick locks.

Hope that Will will come sooner or latter with another trick lock!!

Frist Cylinder by Wil Strijbos

Not a new puzzle but still a "classic" one by Wil Strijbos. This rather small (yes, I was surprised by its small size and I imagined it bigger) puzzle is a nice challenge, whether you're a new puzzler or a seasoned one!

What you notice is the small hole at the bottom and things ratling inside the puzzle. You soon discover that these mysterious things are just ball bearings and from time to time when you depress the cap, these balls fall down. Do they block the cylinder and provide you from opening the puzzle? Well, this is something you will have to figure out or discover when the puzzle is opened!

Actually I opened the puzzle with luck by depressing and shaking the puzzle. You do not really have clues about how to open it, even with the sound of the balls.

When it opens the cap pops up with a satisfaying sound, nice opening!

OK I managed to open it, I looked everything and thought I could have opened it again, so I closed the puzzle.
Damn it! I could not. Same random process as the first time: a bit of shaking, a bit of "cap depressing" and it opens after some time...

Actually I know what to do, but doing it is not that obvious (well, if you have a technique that allows you to open the puzzles in 30 seconds, I would be happy to hear it!).

I like a lot the puzzle because the mechanism is nice and it's a nice challenge for the money spent on it. Its size has an advantage: you can carry the puzzle easily with you.
The thing that I do not like it that the mechanism damages a bit the inside bottom of the puzzle. I cannot say more without spoiling...I am sure nobody likes spoiling, but I am also sure that most of the readers own and/or have solved this puzzle :-)

I don't know if Wil Strijbos still have some, but in case not, you can still find it HERE!

Sweta cross

I know that this puzzle has been reviewed many times over the past recent weeks, but nevermind I also wanted to give my feeling about this puzzle.

This metal puzzle was designed and made by Wil Strijbos with a reference of the Swiss flag (hence the wooden cross shape that goes with the puzzle) and also of the name of one of his friends. Makes sense, right? :-)

The puzzle looks like clearly Wil's past puzzle called the aluminium cross, but that where the similarities end. With of course the same goal: separate the 2 parts of the puzzle.

 I like the shape of the puzzle and I feel it's really nice that it comes with a wooden stand (unfortunately it does not protect the bottom of puzzle, which would have been even nicer). The finish of the puzzle is good and the precision is, of course, very good!

The big difference with  the aluminium cross is that this puzzle has many ball bearings that go in and out of small metal rods and you can see that through plexi windows. So actually the puzzle would have been harder without this windows, but less nice. Sometimes you have to choose between two difficult options :-)

When you play with this puzzle you notice the ball bearings that randomly enter the metal rods or leave out of them but you cannot clearly see what going on in these rods. No matter what would be the outcome you still move again and again the puzzle just to admire the movements of these ball bearings...Yes I know pretty useless. But perhaps you hope secretly that with a bit of luck you will manage to solve the puzzle. But you will never solve it with luck. Don't worry, this is not a difficult puzzle at all, you just need to have good ideas at the right moment...

For the moment only 2 ball bearings...but after maybe more...or less...

I solved it and could admire the mechanism which is simple but efficient. It works all the time and once you know the method you can solve this puzzle easily and very fast! No need to say that it is much simpler than the alu cross and less painful for your fingers. If anyone has already played (I am sure!) with the alu cross they should know what I am talking about...

Solved!! Doing my best not to spoil....not easy...maybe that was the puzzle...

To conclude: a pretty easy puzzle, a nice one though and well, either you collect metal puzzle and/or like Wil's puzzles, I am sure you will like this one!

Bottle coke #9

This bottle is quite unusual because it is in aluminium and not in glass, and thus you cannot see what you're doing, which makes things even more difficult!

By the way, if it were transparent, it would have been too easy :-)

There is a marble inside the bottle, and again the goal is to free it. This time, you don't have to worry about the rigidity of the bottle because this one cannot break, at least from my experience.

As if the fact of not having a glass bottle was not enough, there is a washer that provides you from seeing what the mecanism is, this makes the puzzle more difficult to solve.

You can notice that a hole is pierced in the place of the bear's nose, so maybe this can be useful...
But anyway the hole is pierced in a "designed way". I mean if it were just in the red it would not have looked really nice, whereas here it's almost normal to have a hole for the nose of the bear.

Wil Strijbos adds 2 glowing sticks along with the puzzle. They can be used to see what is inside of the bottle. Try to make good use of them because they don't last forever. But, keep them even after they don't produce light any longer. Usually you should not throw away anything with Strijbos' puzzles.

The fashioned way to find treasures inside your nose :-)

The bottle is very very tricky. The mechanism is simple but cool. Only Strijbos can design such a devilish mechanism. And when you've solved it, you will see how simple things can be so difficult sometimes. But don't think, however, that it's too simple; the mechanism is very well thought.

No shaking, banging is allowed (nor useful) and use of external tool is not useful. Remember that external tools are everyting that do not come along with the puzzle...

I advise you to buy it if Wil make it again, I am sure that it will fit well in your bottle puzzles collection or/and un your Strijbos' puzzle collection.

Bottle coke #4

This bottle puzzle is another puzzle from the Dutch designer Wil Strijbos. This one is composed of a lock attached to a metal chain. Keys are provided but it's difficult to use them as you can see from the pictures below. The funny thing is that this puzzle looks like an impossible bottle, but I assure you that it is solvable..with tears, blood and sweat of course...

You need to find out how to take the lock out of the bottle and the small metal piece above the lock.

Again, it's hard...

Even if external tool are officialy not useful, they are more than welcome because the official solution is very very fetched and you will likely not use it (I did not) either because you did "wrong" things or because it would have never happened in your mind to use it.

But you and me don't know what's happening in the mind of puzzle designers when they're designing their puzzles :-)

So I used an external tool to open it, it is much easier. But it seems that you can open it just using all what is provided to you. So keep everything that comes with the bottle when it arrives if you want to use the official solution...

For this puzzle you will need quite an amount of dexterity and even more when you will reassemble the puzzle (for this, don't be a fool, come on, use external tools^^!!).

Finally solved!!!

An unusual bottle puzzle that will fit well in your collection I think.

But this is not my favourite bottle puzzle and I was a bit disappointed by the "official" solution that I don't really like!

And you, what do you think about it? Leave your comments :-)

Bottle coke #1

Here we are with another Strijbos' puzzle. It is composed of a red stick (the first bottle coke#1 has not a red stick but a white one), a marble (that you have to get out of the bottle) and of course an empty bottle of coke. At the bottom of the red stick there is a screw maintained to the red stick by a nut.

The goal is obvious and what you have to do is obvious too. You have to unscrew the screw so that the red stick can be taken completely out of the bottle, which would free the marble. Easier said than done...!

This puzzle does not require a lot of steps to be solved but it's tricky, and you know that before you try this puzzle, just because it's a Strijbos' :-)
The first step is clever. The next step you will be tempted to act like as you did with the 1st step and you will notice that it does not work. It's normal, you just don't do the correct thing. Have a careful look at the red stick, perhaps that may help you. Anyway, you don't need any external tools.

Be gentle with the bottle, it's in glass and glass can break...

Solved finally!! With a lot of perseverance

Once you've solved the bottle and understood it, then you need to reassemble the bottle. It may require a bit of dexterity, but I managed to use a good method and thus it did not take me long time.


If you like bottle puzzles or if you intend to complete your collection of bottle puzzles, I advise you to buy it when Wil Strijbos has some to sell (they are pretty scarce because it seems that Wil does not make a lot of them). I keep hoping that Wil will make again some of the other bottle puzzles, my collection of them is not completed yet :-(

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

Don't be sad, I will free you !!!

Another blue aluminium puzzle, a beautiful blue that Wil Strijbos uses on many puzzles. When you hold the puzzle you are surprised by its weight. Be careful not to throw it on your feet...

There is cap that doesn't move, well just a little bit. On the cap, there is a nut.

You can see a hole on one part of the puzzle through which you can see a sad smiley...the goal is "make me smile". When you have managed to open the box, you can see that the other side of the smiley rod is an happy smiley face. Now it's clearer, right?

Poor little smiley...

When you "shake" a bit the puzzle you can hear some things ratling inside, but as with many other Wil's puzzles you cannot see what you're doing, and this makes the puzzles "quite" difficult.

 

Many puzzle bloggers say that this puzzle belongs to the sequencial discovery puzzles, and I don't totally agree. Of course you need to find a tool, to use it the right way and do other things. But first there are not a lot of steps (which is a pitty when you know the price of this puzzle!!), and then not a lot of tools...

When you've tried many puzzles like this one, lotus, the egg, the aluminium cross, you know that Wil loves something that he often puts in his puzzles to block you. So that's not a real suprise what is there inside of the box.

I must admit that I have a little bit been disappointed because the mechanism is not complicated and due to the size and to the weight, I though there was something much more complicated inside...Nope...And you cannot put anything inside the box, which would have been a good idea.
Another drawback that may not happen to all the batches of this puzzle: mine was a little bit damaged on a bottom corner of a side. Of course it is not a problem at all to solve the puzzle. But you know when you buy such an expensive product and made by CNC machines (and not human beings!), then you are expecting 0% default...

Anyway, that is a beautiful puzzle, hard to solve, and very enigmatic. I solved it with a good amount of luck. And you know what? I managed to solve this puzzles like some other Wil's puzzles when I played late in the night (around 3am). Perhaps it helps playing late to solve Wil's puzzles :-)

And finally the goal is quite "funny" (make me smile). I recommand to buy it...if you have saved enough money :-)

Freeeeee

Tempted to find the lotus?

This puzzle in an anodized blue aluminium and is made by the famous Wil Strijbos.

The name is well chosen (there is a hint in the name for you to know if you have fully solved, think about that...), the color is beautiful, the precision is very good, the shape is very original. I like it !!

You can see a dovetail joint on the bottom of the puzzle (but the two halves of the puzzle cannot move) and a small hole on the top of the puzzle (but you cannot distinguish almost anything from the inside because it is very dark). Nothing seems to move but things can be heard from the inside...but you cannot get any clue from this noice. 

That does not help you to know what is inside, nor how to solve the puzzle.

The first goal is to take the metal disk out. It seems impossible, but I assure you it is possible...However, not so obvious at a first sight. No force is needed of course, and no external tools are needed.

Once you have removed the washer, then you need to keep on searching and using your tools to go further in the solving process, and try to understand where the name of the puzzle comes from.

Washer removed, but the puzzle is not completely solved :-)

The puzzle does not require a lot of steps to solve, but is fun anyway.

Many people have some issues with this puzzle because you can lose things inside, it is pretty difficult to tell more about that without spoiling...But even if this is the case, you can still do things to find your tool.

I cannot put a picture with the puzzle being completely solved because it will spoil a lot and it is better if you understand by yourself the name of the puzzle :-)

If you need any help or need pictures, drop me an email. I will be happy to answer your questions.

Please take care of the following:

-> Don't pull out the black pin (and this does not help to solve the puzzle) unless you want to open completely the puzzle (which is, again, not useful to solve the puzzle completely...) or if you've lost things inside the puzzle.

-> You should wear some glasses when trying to solve the puzzle...Things can shout out violently like a bullet. It would be a pitty to become blind because of a puzzle...

To conclude: this is a very beautiful puzzle with an original shape, several steps to completely solve it (even if I would have appreciated more steps) and a good level of difficulty. The price is affordable and thus, in my opinion, is worth the money.

The only black point of this puzzle is that you may manage to solve it by chance because the puzzle does not give any clue about how it works.

Perrier bottle puzzle

I bought some bottle puzzles from Wil Strijbos which I will review in other posts.

Wil Strijbos makes a good job when he protects puzzles: they are wrapped in a certain way that the pieces that may shake during the delivery are maintained in place, so that nothing can move and break the puzzle. Indeed, the things inside the tricky bottles (here a plug) can rattle during the shipment and break the bottle...

This a classic Perrier bottle (so in glass, of course) with a metal tube inside. You need to take the plug out of the bottle without any force or shaking. The metal tube is the real obstacle, without it the solution is simple. With it, the solution requires thinking...

It seems impossible, well...it is possible! You just don't know how to solve it ;-)

Unsolved

Be careful: too much shaking can break the bottle...(it did not happen to me because I knew that...). The bottle is provided with a cap, keep it !! By the way, you should always keep everything that goes with Wil's puzzles.

The solution is very "elegant", and to solve the puzzle you need to try things, you need to use what you have...no external tools are required to solve the bottle.

You may manage to solve this puzzle with dexterity, but first this is not the intended solution, and then you may need to shake to bottle...and may break it...

Solved!! What?! Nothing has moved unless the plug?...So strange :-)

Just to avoid any bad ideas you may have:

-> don't put water in the bottle! Of course with water the plug can move to the top, but then because of the tube some water will stay in the bottle...!!

-> don't put anything inside the bottle

I think that if you like bottle puzzles, that is a "must-have" in your collection not only for the design but also for the solving process.

Spanner

This puzzle comes from a famous puzzle designer from the Netherlands: Wil Strijbos.

Wil is more "specialized" in metal puzzles (even if he has made many bottle puzzles), most often puzzles that you can't see what you're doing.

I will review many puzzles from Wil. The first challenge when you order from Wil is to open the package! It is very well wrapped (luckily) with a lot of scotch tape. So you try to find the beginning of the tape because you fear that if you use a knife to open the box, you could damage the puzzles inside the box...No worries: the puzzles inside the box are very well protected !!

Back to the puzzle:

The puzzle is made of a spanner, a metal chain and a metal ring. The goal is to free the metal ring, just as simple as that! The spanner could have been used to screw nuts in a previous life (even if I doubt because it seems very new), but now it is used as a puzzle ;-)

3 steps are needed to solve this puzzle. The puzzle is easy but fun to solve and fun to have for its unusual design. You can let you friends play with it without fearing that they could damage it because it is very sturdy.

Wil made another smaller spanner with a plastic ring. It is solved the same way as the big spanner, and if you want both (good luck to find the smaller one though...), you should begin with the bigger spanner. Because as it is more fragile (not a metal ring but a plastic one), you could hesitate doing things...

This puzzle is not expensive but it's not because puzzles are expensive that they are good. Often, you can have some more fun with the cheapest puzzles...This is a good example.

So I recommand this puzzle. Not for its puzzling aspect if you like difficulty, but for its unusual shape.

If you want it, contact Wil. You can find his email address by searching on Google. 

Remember, Google is your best friend.