Cast W-U (蹄)

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The Cast W-U is another great design by NOB (Nobuyuki Yoshigahara) and was released by Hanayama in 1995. As described on the product information, this puzzle was inspired by the classic Horse (or Horseshoe) puzzle, which had two horseshoes linked by chains and you had to remove a ring from the middle.

The new design, a bit more complex, has four horseshoes, two overlapping in each end. Since the chains are only linking two horseshoes, that leaves the other two free... In both ends of the horseshoe pair, there's a horse head, which by the way isn't there just by chance: it's a design feature that'll be the key to solve the puzzle.

This is a level 3 puzzle, according to Hanayama's rating system (out of 6) and a PuzzleMaster's level 7 (out of 10). As far as solving goes, it wasn't very difficult, maybe because I have solved the Horseshoe puzzle before. Even though it's a bit different to solve, you'll see a certain similarity on the solving process. Don't read the italic text unless you want to know the solution - The trick here is to use the slimmer part of the ring to go down one of the ends of the puzzle, using one horseshoe with the chain and the other just next to it. Next, you'll need to pass the ring over the horse head and then you can free it by sliding it down the opposite ends of the overlapping horseshoes that you used before. Getting the ring back to its original position is actually easier, because it's not one of those puzzles that you solve "by accident" and once you know how to do it, you can repeat it easily. If you're struggling with it, you can download the solution here.

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Closing Comments:

The Cast W-U is yet another puzzle that I enjoyed playing. In fact, I liked every Cast puzzle that I've tried so far. There's so much thought put into each of these puzzles that it's a joy to collect them. It's a kind of puzzle that's not to store in a drawer, but to proudly display in a shelf or a desk...

The Cast W-U is available at PuzzleMaster for CAD $12.95.

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Links:

Hanayama's Factory Visit (Many thanks to Roxanne Wong for sharing these pictures)