New SD and Burr puzzle, 15th Auction Results

We have started selling the new puzzles on 26th December at 07:00 Brisbane time.

Ring Case is a sequential discovery puzzle that contains a finger ring inside. The goal of this puzzle is taking out the ring from the case.

Unbalanced 6 Board Burr looks somehow a bit odd and unbalanced because it has pieces of different thickness.
The burr has a level 16 unique solution that the ordinary 6 board burrs cannot achieve.

These puzzles are the last puzzles we produced in 2019. We will continue to make fun, original puzzles so please look forward to our next year's work!

We held an eBay auction and it ended on 23rd December.
This time, we had put 2 kinds of puzzles for 3 puzzles;
2nd grade of "Ring Case", also 2nd grade of "Unbalanced 6 Board Burr" and miniature "Unbalanced 6 Board Burr."
The sales results are as follows:

Ring Case: AUD $212.50
Unbalanced 6 Board Burr: AUD $67.00
Miniature Unbalanced 6 Board Burr: AUD $66.00

The total sales amount was AUD $345.50 and as we promised, we have donated half of the total sales amount. It was AUD $172.75, so we rounded it up and donated AUD $173.00 to AWLQ on Monday. Here is the receipt.

Our little pleasure is seeing fluffy friends at AWLQ after the donation, but there were only four cats. In a sense it is good that not many cats are waiting for a foster family.

Warm wishes for the glorious coming year!

Yukari

15th puzzle auction and next puzzle release

We have put three puzzles, Ring Case (2nd grade), miniature version and 2nd grade Unbalanced 6 Board Burr up for auction on eBay! A half of the sales of the puzzle will be donated to the AWLQ (Animal Welfare League Queensland) to save stray and surrendered pets.

We initially planned to release Ring Case in early December because its production had been almost completed. Why we have changed our mind is that if we release our puzzle product in this season before Christmas, often delivery takes a lot longer than usual and occasionally the parcel can go missing. Those parcels are usually found at a customs office or your neighbor's door, though. We don't want to have such problems and issues especially when we release puzzle products that can attract many puzzle enthusiasts.

Yes, one of our new products is a sequential discovery puzzle box that is intended to hold a finger ring inside. We will release product versions of Ring Case and Unbalanced 6 Board Burr on the morning of 26th December at 07:00 Brisbane time. Then we can dispatch the majority of the parcels on Friday 27th and Monday 30th. The parcels will definitely be delivered to you before Valentine's day and you can use Ring Case as a gift to your beloved person. We don't mind if you keep the container by just offering its contents.

Unbalanced 6 Board Burr is a level 16 burr that has unique features thanks to the two different combined thickness pieces. The contrast of the color of our original plywood is nice as well.

The total packaging weight of the two new puzzles fits in a 500 g bracket and since we always give an AU $5.00 discount per parcel for international shipments, the shipping cost would be reasonably cheap. (There is usually a big jump in shipping costs between 500 g and 1 kg and two 500 g parcels can be cheaper than one 1 kg parcel depending on the destination country and region.)

We hope you enjoy our last puzzle products of 2019.
May this wonderful time of Christmas and New Year fill your life with happiness and puzzles.

The 14th Auction Results and the site issue

Hi everyone!

We had put up four Grooved 6 Board Burr #4; two second grades and two test pine versions on eBay auction. The results are as follows.

Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 (Pine, test version, 1 of 2) AUD 71.00
Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 (Pine, test version, 2 of 2) AUD 81.00
Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 (2nd grade, 1 of 2) AUD 67.00
Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 (2nd grade, 2 of 2) AUD 71.00

The total sales amount was AUD 290.00.
As we promised, we donated AUD 145.00 to Save The Bilby Fund yesterday morning. Here is the receipt.

Probably, bilbies are not well known like kangaroos or koalas, so I will write a little about them. The bilby is a nocturnal, long-eared marsupial and is native to Australia. The non-native species like foxes and cats threaten bilbies and they are endangered animals. I will paste the video of bilbies below.

By the way, we have released two of our new products soon after the auction. But one of the plugins that was installed on our web shopping system caused conflict and made our customers' orders impossible. Lots of emails came in telling that they couldn't place orders on our website. It was too late when we recognized the issue and we needed to solve the issue as soon as possible.

Juno re-installed the troublesome plugin, but it was no luck. He gave up using the existing plugin and looked for an alternative one, installed it to the system and re-entered the configuration for the shipping zones and shipping boxes one by one.

It took about 74 minutes to fix the issue and we believe that some European customers who were waiting for the release might have shortened their sleep. So, we have learned something, and we will be more careful when we release our next puzzle products.

G6BB#4 and Loopy L Cube #2

As we have informed before, our eBay auction ended, and shortly after it ended, we started selling our two new kinds of puzzles, Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 and Loopy L Cube #2 on our Pluredro Shop.

We have started selling these new puzzles early in the morning in Australian eastern standard time because this time is the most reasonable and fair for most puzzle collectors in the world who don't want to miss the release.
Thanks, Juno, for getting up early in the morning.

Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 and Loopy L Cube #2 are both quite difficult and these puzzles are waiting for the serious puzzle solvers' challenge!

We will notify you the results of the auction later.

14th auction and next puzzle products

We have put four Grooved 6 Board Burr #4, two of pine versions and two of 2nd grade puzzles up for auction on eBay!

A half of the sold amount of this auction will be donated to Save the Bilby Fund to support unique Australian marsupials.

We have already finished producing Grooved 6 Board Burr #4 and the puzzle is going to be released 7th November 07:00 Brisbane time, soon after the end of the auction. So, we expect that the winning bid price of the auction doesn't rise too high and the auction might be a good opportunity for you to get this difficult burr puzzle in a cheaper price.

Loopy L Cube #2 is also going to be released on the same day.  I have been challenging with the puzzle quite long time but I myself feel that #2 is at least 10 times harder than Loopy L Cube #1. The puzzle belongs to one of my unsolved puzzle collections and I don't want to increase the number of the puzzles in the collection. Sob.

By the way, some puzzle lovers think that the upper image is a spoiler of the puzzle because you can specify the position of the several pieces observing the parting lines of L shapes. Please be assured. Juno is unkind enough to assemble a fake solution and the image gives no clue to the actual solution. The puzzle is waiting for your challenge!

Yukari

Loopy L Cube #1

We Pluredro have released many kinds of burr puzzles and puzzle boxes, also some sequential discovery puzzles in the past, but realized that there were a few puzzles that are categorized in the put-together genre. Although put-together puzzles don't appeal much to puzzle collectors I think, it is fun to play with these kinds of puzzles because the object of the puzzle is usually very clear and easy to begin with.
Here is our new product Loopy L Cube #1.

The object of the puzzle is to form a 3 x 3 x 3 cube and it has a unique solution. All nine pieces have a white tongue-like protrusion, an oval shape hole and none of the axes of the tongue and hole are parallel. If the two axes of a particular piece are parallel, the piece itself can be disassembled from the 3 x 3 x 3 cube but Juno didn't want that.

There are lots of cube shaped puzzles. Giving a tray with the puzzle sets our product apart from similar looking puzzles on the market. The tray is made of PNG Rosewood and it has Juno's branding mark on the back.

We thought that it was a not good idea to sell this puzzle in an assembled shape since it can spoil the fun to play with the puzzle. Juno found the following shape that forms a 3 x 3 x 3 cube with several protruding tongues around the surface. It was good for packaging and shipping for this relatively big cube puzzle.

I like this type of puzzle very much. I myself solved the puzzle in about 10 minutes but the puzzle was still tricky. Using insight leads you much faster to solve it. If you see each piece carefully, you may guess what pieces go where.

Loopy L Cube #1 is a good puzzle for anyone, even someone who has never played with a puzzle.

We are currently working on a burr puzzle and puzzle box. Those puzzles will take some time to finish making. We will make an announcement when they are ready.

Yukari

13th Auction Result and puzzle release timing

The auction we held ended on 21st September successfully.
The sales results are as follows:

SDBBB (Pine, test version): $405.00
Juno's Checker Pentominoes (American Black Walnut): $107.50
Juno's Checker Pentominoes (Jarrah): $112.50
Juno's Checker Pentominoes (Utile): $102.50
Total: $727.50

The total sales amount was AUD $727.50. It was the highest sales amount ever! The donation amount was AUD $365.00. We used to donate half of the sales to animal shelters, but this time we headed to a wildlife park with AUD $365.00 cash in hand. The park we chose was David Fleay Wildlife Park.

Here is the receipt.

It was a nice opportunity to say hello to Aussie animals, so we walked around the park. Australia has a variety of animals, some of them are very pretty and some of them are very dangerous.

Here is a representative of a dangerous creature; crocodile.

Here is an iconic cute animal; Koala.

This time, SDBBB was sold out very quickly. Honestly, we didn't expect them to be out of stock three hours after we started selling.
We feel sorry for people who live in Europe. For them, the release time was too early in the morning. Therefore, what we thought is, for example setting the release time of popular puzzles like sequential discovery puzzles or puzzle boxes at 7 am on Sunday morning in Brisbane, Australia time. If we started selling at 7 am, the time of other places would be as follows:

California: 14:00 Sat
New York: 17:00 Sat
London: 22:00 Sat
Frankfurt: 23:00 Sat
Paris: 23:00 Sat
Athens: 24:00 Sat

The time I indicated above might change depending on the season, so please make sure.

I think this is the best option to give a fair opportunity for most people. We will announce you the day and roughly the time of starting to sell puzzles by the newsletter and on our website. (Sorry, we don't use Facebook)

We are now making the next puzzle. I am very excited because the next one is my favorite type of puzzle. Please wait and see what is coming next.

Yukari

SDBBB and Two by Three NN L-8

We have produced two new products SDBBB and Two by Three NN L-8. The detail of the puzzles can be seen at our official web shop.

SDBBB stands for Sequential Discovery Board Burred Box. Juno again designed a twisted minded puzzle like our former product Sequential Discovery Burred Box. The same as its brother, SDBBB is considered as burr, puzzle box and sequential discovery puzzle. I reckon if you have Sequential Discovery Burred Box and like it, you may love SDBBB as well.

Although the puzzle became expensive once you see the engineering work, number of small parts and detail of the puzzle, you will notice how much effort was put into this puzzle. Moreover, the grain wood texture of American Rock Maple is so beautiful.

Please be assured, we didn't put in a loaf of bread this time but there is a treat in the internal cavity of the box to make the goal of the puzzle clearer and celebrate.

SDBBB is a quite big puzzle and its off-cuts are large enough to be used for production of a smaller puzzle. Juno designed a puzzle to suit the size of off-cut timber and it became Two by Three NN L-8.

This little puzzle is relatively easy, and we think that many burr puzzle lovers can solve it without any aids.

Hope you enjoy our new puzzle products!

Yukari

13th Puzzle Auction

This is our 13th puzzle auction on eBay and as usual, a half of the sales of the puzzle will be donated to a wildlife cause.

SDBBB - Sequential Discovery Board Burred Box
This is the test version of our next product that is going to be released soon after this auction.
The one on the auction is made of pine timber and our original plywood of American Rock Maple and Utile is used for the product version.

Juno's Checker Pentominoes
He designed this puzzle in 2016 to use off-cut timber efficiently. We have put three of them on the auction and all the three sets have different timber, American Black Walnut, Jarrah and Utile for the darker cubes. Making a 5 x 4 x 3 cuboid with all the twelve pieces is very difficult but even puzzle beginners can enjoy it.

American Black Walnut

Jarrah

Utile

We don't produce Juno's Checker Pentominoes as our regular product and this is the only opportunity that you can have the puzzle.

Yukari

Headed Lattice and 12th Auction Results

Hi,

We have produced our second lattice type puzzle Headed Lattice last weekend. Please have a look at the detail of the puzzle on our official web shop.

Before the release of Headed Lattice, we held 12th puzzle auction on eBay and the total sales amount of the three puzzles became a surprisingly high AUD $357.00!

As we have always done, Juno and I headed to the head branch of AWLQ, the shelter of one of our adapted cats, to donate half the sales amount of the auction. It was a good excuse to meet our fluffy friends but this time, we also met some birds, dogs and guinea pigs there. Here is the invoice of the donation.

 

Donation receipt (AUD180.00)

We also met our (human) friends there and they also supported AWLQ to express their gratitude for having a fun time at the shelter. After we left the shelter, we enjoyed lunch and shopping together, and it was a great day for the beginning of the week.

Yukari

12th Puzzle Auction

We have started an eBay auction for three puzzles, one prototype of a new puzzle and another two are Pine and our original plywood versions of burr puzzles that we have no intention to sell as our regular product.
As usual, every puzzle starts from $1.00 AUD!

A half of the sales of the puzzle will be donated to the AWLQ (Animal Welfare League Queensland) to save stray and surrendered pets.

Level 7-8 Burr (original plywood and Pine versions)
We have no intention to make a product version of this puzzle since it is similar to our former products, and thus there are only two available in the auction.

Headed Lattice (prototype)
There are only four pieces to the puzzle, but it requires relatively high numbers of 20 moves to remove the first piece from the assembled shape. The product versions of Headed Lattice will start selling soon after the end of this auction.  

Yukari

Slammed Car won the Jury Grand Prize

It was good news to hear that one of our puzzle products, Slammed Car, won the Jury Grand Prize at the 2019 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition. We received lots of congratulatory messages and we thank all of you who supported us.

Although we run a niche business producing wooden mechanical puzzles, the name of the designer is not Juniche but Junichi. When Juno was a small kid, he complained to his mother asking why his Japanese name looked simpler compared to two of his elder brothers. His mother told Juno that all the Japanese names of her three sons have the same number of spelling strokes and your name means No. 1 hoping to be No. 1. Juno's mind was not so twisted as today at the time and he was convinced and thought that "OK, I have to be No. 1." Anyways, Juno likes to be spelled as Juniche and he captured the image of the competition website before the committee fixed the mistyping.

We have produced nearly 100 Slammed Cars and thanks to your support, the cars are almost gone.

Now, it is a good opportunity to inform our customers who have already bought the car. We expected that some of the small parts of the puzzle can be lost or damaged, so we produced extra parts. We heard the car displayed at the competition was also damaged and we think positively it meant many people played with the puzzle. There are especially decent numbers of spare parts of wing mirror sets and the spanner. One of our customers told us the front rego plate was chewed by his dog.

You know, the world is complex, and we don't know what will happen; chewed by a dog, traffic accident and so on. Please contact us if you need these spare parts. We can send replacement parts (if available) by non-trackable letter or if you buy another puzzle at Pluredro Shop, we can enclose the replacement part in the package.

We have already been working on our next sequential discovery puzzle product, but it is impossible to tell at the moment when the puzzle will be available. Please understand that we also can't reserve our puzzle products because if everybody starts asking us for a reservation, we just cannot handle it, and it is also important for fairness to let the early birds catch the worm. The first announcement of our new products is always notified by Pluredro Newsletter and if you are not subscribed, please register.

Yukari

New burr puzzles and 11th auction results

We have released three new burr puzzle products Samarium, Diabolic Claw Burr and Impenetrable Knot. All of them are made and CNC machined from our original plywood to keep durability, strength and accuracy of the puzzle pieces. Please have a look at the detail of each puzzles, and hope you like them.

We recently have held puzzle auctions and the winning bit price were as follows.

Samarium - 62 moves burr (test version)  AU $49.00
Impenetrable Knot (test version)  AU $107.50
6 Broad Board Burr (1 of 2) AU $152.50
6 Broad Board Burr (2 of 2) AU $71.00
Total: AU $380.00

We often went to AWLQ for donation but today, Juno found that there are more than 60 cats at the RSPCA Brisbane and he insisted we should go there. So we went there, met fluffy friends and donated a half amount of the sold price of the auction. We couldn't receive an official receipt for the donation today, so we will scan and upload the proof later on this blog entry.

We finally received the receipt from RSPCA today.
(Edited on 29th July 2019)

Yukari