I’ve found on the Internet a book about crafting wood puzzles. Some were extremely easy to make at home but others, mostly sure, require a machine or a lot of sculpture talent.

I really love this kind of puzzles and I wanted to build one. The “Half an Hour Puzzle” seemed easy to make but there was a warning that is one of the hardest – it has only one solution; others might have many.

First I will describe how to make your own, then I will tell you how I couldn’t solve it :)

The solution of the puzzle is a 3x3x3 cube but there are hundreds of other models that can be made from its pieces. Here are the chunks that make the cube:

I think the easiest way to make the pieces is to have 27 small cubes and glue them together. The small cubes can be made at home. Just take a piece of wood and start cutting :) I’ve made mine 1x1x1 cm.

So, in order to make this puzzle you need:

• 27 small cubes (all the same size)
• Wood glue
• 2-3 toothpicks

So here they:

Now take some glue with a toothpick and place it on a face of a cube. Let it dry about 1 min then attach another cube. In the end you should have something like this:

Let the glue dry at least 24 hours.

Now here is the funny part. There are 6 pieces and a cube must be made. But how?

First time it took me about 15 minutes to make it (PURE LUCK!) then done something I regret: I scrambled the cube because someone else wanted to try – nobody managed to reassemble it until today (since Wednesday)- everybody from my office tried.

This puzzle is called “(Coffin) Half an Hour” but I think it should be renamed to “Half a Week”.

If I will be able to reassemble it I will post a picture here – wish me luck!