I found this apparently new puzzle today on the japanese 3D reconstruction site. It looks amazing!

csx.jp/~3dpuzzle/image/pyracue/pyracue.jpg

Here are many more pictures of scrambled pyracues:
http://csx.jp/~3dpuzzle/pyracue.html

Do any of you know anything else about this puzzle? Is it a new mechanism or is it based on an existing one (like MentalBlock)?

The site says Mr. Ishino developed this puzzle from the Off-set Skewb. I would love to know how he fabricates these things. I can visualize how to do it with epoxy resin, and it seems difficult. I bet he uses a different fabrication method.

Tyler posted the address of the guy who makes all these puzzles for crazy prices. There was a picture of this one on the site, but i didnt realise it could get into that much of a mess!

I think it is based on a skewb, just like Mental Block.

There are four planes of rotation. The rectangular pieces on the top and bottom, and the four pieces along the vertical edges correspond to the faces of the skewb. The other pieces (note the little triangles are separate pieces) correspond to the corners.

I'm wondering if this might be a further distortion of the fisher offcentre cube like the fisher 2 cube.

I went with that first too, Wayne. But the planes of the cuts don't interesect at a 90 degree angle.

Seems to me like an off-center skewb. It's got 14 pieces, just like a skewb, at least.

But whatever the heck it is based on, it doesn't look all that solid. The way you can rotate those little triangular pieces to poke out of the cube-shape is a little scary.



Sandy