As people love many kinds of hobbies, there are many kinds of gatherings in the world. Junichi Yananose (aka Juno) attended one of the biggest worldwide events for puzzle lovers, the "International Puzzle Party" early this month.
The International Puzzle Party (hereinafter called IPP) takes place somewhere in the world every year and it was held in Paris, France this year.
For Juno, this year's IPP became a memorable one. One of the reasons is he had not attended IPP for seven years. Another reason is he had an opportunity to make a gift for the host of IPP (Frans de Vreugd) this year. Brian (Mr Puzzle) and Juno were asked to prepare a commemorative puzzle gift for the host and they have done that combining their original two puzzles and a crystal pyramid.
Luckily, Juno had beautiful dark color Jarrah timber and Mr Puzzle suggested to use it for the base of the host gift. First, Juno milled shallow grooves and a circular hole on the surface of the timber using a CNC router.
These two grooves accommodate a crystal pyramid and The Louvre sequential discovery puzzle. Then, Juno routed the edge of the base using a decorative router bit set onto his favorite original router table, and put small feet under the base.
Mr Puzzle made a supporting post for "Reza 12-20" using a wood lathe because as you see, "Reza 12-20" has a spherical shape and it needed something to hold it stable. A square shaped cover was cut from 3mm acrylic sheet at Mr Puzzle's workshop to be set under the crystal pyramid. When you see through the drawing printed on a piece of paper set underneath the crystal pyramid, the effect that is given to the drawing caused by reflection of the pyramid is very interesting.
After all the shape of the base had been made, he coated and sanded it several times and polished it using a plastic sanding sponge to have a smooth surface.
The base itself weighed 3kg and that means the total weight of the host gift would be over 5kg, and has significant volume and a tough-handling shape. It must be very difficult and risky to take the assembled host gift to Paris.
Two of the puzzles, base, post and the pyramid were brought to Paris separately. Juno fetched some of those items to his IPP37 hotel room. He set the supporting post onto the base, and then partially disassembled
Reze 12-20 by removing several pieces, inserted the post into Reze 12-20, and re-inserted the removed pieces to the puzzle.
The Louvre and the crystal pyramid were set onto the base at the last moment, and finally, it was given to the host at the Award Dinner Party.
Our small concern is that he didn’t get the solution to those puzzles. Juno himself needs an hour and a half to assemble Reza 12-20 checking the solution. And Frans might be courageous enough to challenge the puzzle. We might have a chance to see 60 sticks stacked onto the base of the host gift in his puzzle room in the future.
We hope that Frans loves this year's host gift.
* Pluredro Online Shop:
Reza 12-20 - Polyhedral shape interlocking burr puzzle
Yukari
