• designed by Stewart Coffin (USA)
• number of pieces: 6
• difficulty rating (from 1 to 10): 6
• availability: out of stock

Looking like a cluster of six rhombic dodecahedrons, this puzzle is a member of the Diagonal Burr family. Assembly is not especially difficult for anyone familiar with Diagonal Burr style puzzles, however disassembling ("busting") the cluster can be quite tricky because it has only one sliding axis and requires awkward placement of six fingers to begin pushing the two halves apart.

All six pieces are identical in shape. Although the first several photographs on this page show sets of six differently-colored pieces, the Cluster Buster puzzles that Stewart Coffin produced came as colored pairs of pieces, as demonstrated by the last few photographs. There are two very good reasons for making the Cluster Buster a three-color puzzle (instead of six-color):

• Human tendency is to want to match like pairs together, which means that with a three-color puzzle there is only one correct solution (with an opposite-handed variation.)
• When a three-color puzzle is assembled correctly (with like pairs together) it becomes much more difficult to determine which axis the puzzle halves separate upon, and how the fingers must be placed to get the separation started.

When placing an order for this puzzle, please specify if you want a six-color set (as shown in the first photographs), or a set of three pairs of colors. If you want the three-color set, please specify which three woods you want. If you have deep pockets, may we wholeheartedly recommend purchasing two six-color sets, thus having the ability to pair up the colors in whatever manner pleases you most. Our world-famous precision manufacturing techniques ensure that pieces may be freely swapped from one puzzle to another without negatively affecting the perfect fit of the puzzle pieces.

Pacific Puzzleworks proudly manufactures each puzzle from only the finest quality exotic hardwoods. We never use any stains or dyes to achieve the stunning colors that you see here -- instead we showcase the beauty that nature has to offer by finishing our painstakingly cut puzzle pieces with clear lacquer and high-quality Renaissance brand museum-grade wax.

Design Notes: In his book "Puzzling World of Polyhedral Dissections", Stewart Coffin called this design the Reluctant Cluster. For such an interesting puzzle design, it is noteworthy that Coffin made only 5 copies of this puzzle! Presumably Stewart Coffin produced so few of them because he prefered his so-called "improved" version of this puzzle which has the same outward appearance and tricky disassembly as this one, but uses three dissimilar pairs of pieces, making it an all around more difficult puzzle. Another variaton is the truncated version which is easier to disassemble because the flattened tips provide a means of pulling the halves apart rather than having to push with the awkward six-finger grip. At some point in the near future (early 2009 perhaps?) Pacific Puzzleworks will offer these other variations of the Cluster Buster puzzle for sale.