Sphere puzzles, anyone?

[rolly_wood]

strange shape. If they did not laugh at me, even unable to understand English, how could someone laugh at you? Nobody will do it, we wish to see photos ... 

[Canuck]

Here is an interesting puzzle I invented yesterday.  Unfortunately it is not interlocking, but geometrically kind of cool.  I haven't made a model of it yet.

There are "pentaspheres", which are 5 spheres glued together from the FCC lattice.  Remarkably, there 210 such beasts, which is a large number to think about.  You can see a diagram of all 210 at

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~uy7t-isn/Puzzle/Polyspheres/Pentasphere.html

But there is only one pentasphere, A, with the following properties:

1) Take A, and a piece A' which is A's mirror image.  They form a 10-ball tetrahedron.
2) Take 2 copies of A, and 2 copies of A', and make a 20-ball tetrahedron.
3) Take 3 copies of A, 3 copies of A', and a single copy of a planar pentasphere X, and make a 35-ball tetrahedron.

Of course A' also satisfies these 3, but that doesn't count as different.  Very few pentaspheres satisfy property 1, and from this you can figure out what A is.  There are only two pieces which can fill the role of X.

Now I fully understand you're need for accurately made inexpensive spheres!!  I'm now wonderin' if a jig could be made to make these wooden spheres on the lathe, any experienced turner up for a challenge???

[gibell]

fiftysix balls, without having them in hands, will probably saturate my CPU (Cervello di un Povero Umanoide: Brain of a Poor Humanoid) 
Joking otherwise Chinny becomes sad

There are several commercial puzzles based on 55 balls.  My kids got "Kanoodle" a while ago.  These pieces are all planar and are in fact mostly pentominoes.  These are fantiastic puzzles, and cost very little.  Lonpos makes something very similar

http://www.puzzlemethis.com/cgi-bin/puzzle/LON110665.html

Lonpos even has a set that makes tetrahedrons

http://www.lon-pos.com/en/areaq.htm

[Chinnomotto]

Now  lets see, 25 x 5 = man thats a lot of ping pong balls and super glue to buy and make

I swap Vinny baby my Football Downunder for his Icosa 92, a lot of balls there

As for A and A' George , I have no idea what you are  explaining

Do post a pic, Rolly won't laugh, BUT I WILL 

Ball turning Jig, thats the way to make 100 balls, boring but consistant

 we talked about making them, hot air , no action

That defective cowboy was suppose to look into it

But he has more fun making micro eggs instead, silly man

[Canuck]

Ball turning Jig, thats the way to make 100 balls, boring but consistant

I was thinking of something more along the lines of a special shaped cutter so once you had say a 3/4" stick turned round then you would use this special cutter to separate each sphere, but leaving a little to sand away after???

[Chinnomotto]

I've tried that. Buy curtain rods or broom handles. Then trim an elcheapo splade bit down

Not perfect but playable, give or take a millimeter

Works better if you mount an x - y table on the lathe, like Skiprat does

Ball turning jigs the way to go, set the jig up, cut lots of short rods, waste 2/3 rds for 1 consistant and perfect ball

If using exotic woods remount and make 2nd batch, least you get 2 out of 3, maybe 3 out of 4

Also, if you look up IPP 27 contest, there was a 5 ping pong  set up in 1 plane, 5 x 5  square base pyramid

Not many played with it cause its too differcult to reassemble back

I'll have to talk to Dave Cooper when be gets back in a week

[Canuck]

I've tried that. Buy curtain rods or broom handles. Then trim an elcheapo splade bit down

I should have known you already tried it   Seriously, what took so long for all of us to connect in a forum?

[gibell]

The wood balls I have must be made by a special machine.  How else could they be 5 cents a piece?  I bought 300 from Woodworks, and they seem to be pretty accurate.  I would think making 300 wood spheres on a lathe would be a horrible task!

I made Coffin's octahedral cluster, and it is quite the baffling puzzle.  It also does not seem to interlock that well made out of spheres.  But posssibly it is my amatuer gluing job.  This is a baffling puzzle considering there are only four pieces.

I also made the puzzle I mentioned yesterday, 3 A and 3 A' plus an X.  The smaller tetrahedrons are very easy but the 35-ball tetrahedron using all pieces is tricky.  I'll post some photos when I get a chance.

[Canuck]

The wood balls I have must be made by a special machine.  How else could they be 5 cents a piece?  I bought 300 from Woodworks, and they seem to be pretty accurate.  I would think making 300 wood spheres on a lathe would be a horrible task!

Yeah, making 300 might be a bit of a stretch, however if they could be made in small batches in exotic woods...now you have some puzzle material.  It's the same with puzzles that require dowels, unless you can make your own from exotics...it's kinda' pointless.  Hard to sell a 'high quality puzzle' with storebought maple dowels   It's one of the biggest reasons I never made any of Stewart's puzzle designs that require dowel stock, maybe it's time I had another look at those

[gibell]

OK, here are some new pix of my puzzle design.  This is obviously a prototype and not a finished puzzle.  The pieces are numbered for easy identification.  You master woodworkers should get a good laugh out of this!

The first photo shows the pieces, then three possible configurations using all pieces.  Only the big tetrahedron requires piece X (which, as you can see, is named well).  The confusing part of building this big tetrahedron is it appears this piece won't even fit inside it.  Only the 35-ball tetrahedron is difficult to build, but even that does not seem that hard.

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[Canuck]

Oh I like that George, very well done!   

[gibell]

If Piece X was made from a darker wood, you would notice that it is visible on all 4 faces, which is kind of surprising.

[rolly_wood]

good matching George. The 4hedra look nicely shaped even the bigger one. It means accurate gluing,

[DCBluesman]

If you are looking for exotic wood dowels, check out http://www.bellforestproducts.com/wood-dowels/

[DCBluesman]

And another.  http://www.dowelsondemand.com/prices.html