The Double Four Legged Puzzle #81-C-1 (modified)

8 hexagonal sticks & 8 dowels. Two stick-dowel pairs joined to form two different elbows. Another two joined to form two different cross pieces. 12 pieces in total.

Not sure if anyone ever answered Stewart’s challenge from 1987 to analyse all the variations using different elbows to make this shape but Brian has made at least one of the possible variation here. He not only made this puzzle with two different elbows but also with two different cross pieces.

Stewart writes in his notes that this puzzle “combines the geometry of both the Locked Nest Puzzle and the Cuckoo Nest Puzzle”. Brian tried to move it away from these two puzzles by incorporating as many different pieces as possible.

After playing with many different versions it becomes difficult to know if you’ve increased the level of difficulty or not but one thing is for sure, it’s hard to find the correct pieces to begin assembly.

Brian has built the puzzle in the reverse direction to Stewart’s drawings, after all we are downunder.

Size: Hex pieces are 118mm long.