The Hardest 4 Piece Puzzle You’ll Every Try But So Easy for Everyone to Make.

I'm in a woodworking club and we make toys for disadvantage children which are then distributed by over 50 charities. We typically build over 5,000 toys each year. (BTW, we also make custom wooden pens for active and former military personnel >2,000 last year.)

One of the toys we make is a simple puzzle. Well it "appears" simple but as you will find out, appearances can deceive.

You can give it a try yourself by printing and cutting out a paper version of this puzzle (see attached in supplies) and I bet you can't complete it in under one minute. Most likely it can take you an hour if you can do it all all :-).

As a matter of fact, I offer those that try the puzzle and complete under a minute a free milkshake.

No milkshakes have been won to date and I even have trouble putting the puzzle together and have done it many times.

So have fun and try the paper puzzle version (it's easy), then follow this instructable on how to build a beautiful wooden heirloom toy that will be enjoyed for years to come.

Bonus: I added a second puzzle at the end too,

This is a very simple puzzle to build with a few parts.

Supplies:

1) Puzzle Template (see picture)

2) Wood for puzzle pieces that has a nice grain pattern. You can make it any size but I start with a board 5" square and 3/16" thick.

3) Wood for puzzle box frame sides. (4 1/4" x 1/4" x 1/2") (L x W x H)

4) Wood for puzzle box frame bottom. (4" x 4" x 1/8") (L x W x H)

5) Your favorite wood finish to make your heirloom look beautiful.

6) Wood glue

Tools:

1) Table saw

2) Rubberbands for Clamps

After you select an nice board with an interesting grain pattern for your puzzle, I recommend you sand it to create a very smooth surface since it is much easier now then latter when the puzzle pieces are cut out.

Next, trace you four puzzle pieces on the wood and carefully note the grain direction so you purposely arrange the pieces with the grain going in various directions. This makes assembling the puzzle more tricky :-).

You can now cut the puzzle pieces out on a table or scroll saw and then sand the edges of the puzzle pieces to their outlines to create tight alignment.

Now that you have the puzzle pieces perfect, you can now create the puzzle frame box for the puzzle to be assembled in. This is what makes the puzzle tricky for challengers since they need to think outside the box while building the puzzle in the box :-)

A Hint you can give your challengers: "Corners are just a state of mind."

The dimensions of the frame and base of the puzzle are in the Supplies Step above but it's best to match sizes to your assembled 4 puzzle pieces and build around that. I recommend starting with the outer frame and getting that as tight as possible to the assemble puzzle and leave around 1/16" gap to provide challengers room to move the pieces around during their assembly attempts.

After you finish the frame, you can build the bottom of the box. I recommend cutting a 1/8" rabbit in your frame so the puzzle base snugly fits in.

Now that you have all the puzzle pieces cut, you can do another test fit and sand to tweak as needed, then glue up the puzzle box and stain all the pieces.

Now the fun begins!

Time yourself to see how fast you can assemble the puzzle (if at all). Even though you have seen the assemble puzzle during the build process, it still can be very hard to do.

Your friends will not have this advantage and you can see them try to figure things out and be utterly perplexed. I'm not advocating sadistic behaviors but it's hard not to enjoy watching their mental wheels spin. So let's call this more of a dissectologist by proxy behavior.

Highly Recommended: You may find it very helpful to glue the puzzle solution to the bottom of the puzzle box frame. It can come in handy for you to correctly assemble the puzzle and even that will be tricky for you.

BTW, this same frame can be used for other puzzles. I have included a 5 piece versus if you are "game".

Hope you trying the build or at least try a paper version. It's fun.