Euroka - not Eureka! Desperation Made Me Do It!

Or: "You Stupid Boy"!

Euroka 10x3 from Junichi Yananose

At the beginning of this year, Juno released another of his complex interlocking puzzles - the Euroka 10x3. I have 3 of these beauties already and they do look fabulously intimidating on display. I really enjoyed playing with a couple of them after being forcefully pushed but mostly they just look gorgeous and remind me that Juno has a terribly warped mind. I love the look of them but they really do frighten me to death. So why did I buy this one? I am not terribly certain, to be honest, and I think it was probably a big moment of madness - but not as big a moment as I had today!

Up until now I had been very careful and had put it on display in my study where it forms a sort of shrine to Juno's madness. 

It is pretty spectacular with a diameter of 240 mm made from 30 identical pieces with magnets and a Base. It is gorgeous made from New Guinea Walnut, PNG Rosewood and Fijian Mahogany. I had intended to leave it on display indefinitely but...

I have had rather a tough week this week with Mrs S up north , a few evenings of mild DIY and quite a long week of work (including Saturday). I had completely failed to find anything useful with Juno's Dial case and reached this morning without having solved anything at all. Drastic measures were required and I carefully lifted the Euroka off the windowsill and into the kitchen for some exploration - maybe this would be a great story of wonder and success for the blog? Erm......NO!

In the words of the great Captain Mainwaring talking to Private Pike:

You Stupid Boy!

It started out OK as I removed first one layer and then a second layer of the pieces came out by just simply tugging them along their axis. I thought to myself that this was going to be triumph for the blog! Erm......NO!

1st layer out

2 layers out - encouraging

At this point it felt pretty stable and I threw caution to the wind - carefully pulled out the first part of the third layer and it held together. Magnets are truly wonderful things.

This is going really well

There appeared to only be another 3 layers. I was full of confidence and continued the odyssey stupidity. I removed one single piece from the 4th layer....it looked good. Just a little wobble but looked reasonably firm. Sod it! Lets continue...

Oh Bugger!

Who's big idea was that? I had a pile o' very lovely wood and only a vague idea how they fit together. I also had the terrible realisation that it was really quite unstable with less than 14 pieces in situ. The very next thing I did was count my hands - I reached only 2 which I suspect might be a problem. I then counted the hands of everyone else who was currently in the house and reached zero (even if Mrs S wasn't in Edinburgh then I very much doubt that she would help me). I examined the cat's paws and figured that he was not likely to help me - he has a very paw attention span. This puzzle might end up remaining in pieces for the rest of my life which may be short if Mrs S sees a pile of pieces in the kitchen when she comes home. I really should have fully read the description from Juno:

"Euroka 10x3 is fairly stable once about half the pieces are assembled, but still difficult at the start. Juno himself struggled for nearly an hour to assemble a puzzle prototype without the proper jigs. To solve this issue, we also produced a base that can be used for an assembling jig. With the base, you can assemble the puzzle in less than five minutes if you are familiar with it." 

The flip side of the base does indeed have some holes in it to assist with the assembly:

Tidier, but I don't think "she" will be happy with this

It's a jig with Juno's mark

I have spent quite a bit more than the 5 minutes mentioned on the product page trying to put the first half together and am wondering where I can hide it in the house so that she doesn't notice yet another clutter. The New Horizon from Pelikan that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago (still available as I type) also remains in pieces in the kitchen and I had better move it before she returns home.

This failure to assemble puzzles is becoming a bit of a habit here. In fact, I seem to be failing to solve puzzles in general. You should probably ignore my ramblings from now on and just read the other guys stuff instead for real inspiration! Sob!

Right! Back to it. She's not coming back until tomorrow so I do have a bit more time to play. Happy weekend everyone.