Keith Winegar’s rather lengthy named IPP37 Exchange Puzzle, the “Paris Pinned Wedge Key Puzzle” (PPWKP) is the latest in the series of his take apart Wedge Key Puzzles. These puzzles look like jigsaw puzzles but is anything but such. His second version, the “Pinned Wedge Key Puzzle” was also his IPP35 Exchange Puzzle in Ottawa during the summer of 2015. Seasoned puzzlers would know that there are several other designs incorporating the similar jigsaw style pieces including the Hanayama Cast Square, and Wil Strijbos’ 4 Piece Metal Puzzle. However, unlike the latter two, Keith Winegar’s designs incorporate additional elements into his Wedge Puzzles which make the solving more interesting. And depending on how you compare and look at it, more challenging as well.
Needless to say, with the PPWKP, Keith had a couple of new tricks up his sleeve which wasn’t too obvious to me while I played with it. The PPWKP is made from Maple and has a Walnut packing strips screwed to the sides to prevent the puzzle from coming apart accidentally. It even comes with its own numbering.
Although not shown in the photo, Keith did provide a small screw driver for removing the screws in the Walnut strips. The PPWKP measures about 90mm x 90mm x 22mm. Quality and construction is very good and I might add, necessary for a puzzle of this nature, where accuracy of the cuts and fit is paramount. Accompanying the puzzle is a sheet of instructions and some history of the Wedge Key Puzzles.
The object of course is to take apart the 4 jigsaw looking pieces and trick or mechanism for the PPWKP differs from the IPP35 version. This is a sequential discovery puzzle where you utilise whatever “tools” and parts that come with the puzzle to solve it. No other external tools are allowed. As mentioned, removal of the walnut strips is necessary so the puzzling begins from that point onwards. The provided screw driver however does not count and honestly wouldn’t help unless you wanted to use it to pry the pieces apart by force.
I would consider this latest design of Keith’s to be rather tricky. It isn’t too difficult once you discover how the mechanism of the puzzle works but finding out the mechanism to it is the fun part. Surprisingly, it took me longer than I had expected to solve; I wasn’t paying enough attention