Victor

Interlocking puzzle by Stewart Coffin (STC #201)

Assemble the six pieces into the polyhedral shape shown in the photo.

Victor is a polyhedral puzzle descended from earlier Coffin designs such as Star of David, Rosebud, and Combination Lock: Coffin wrote that "[i]t can be regarded as the Combination Lock #128, modified to have polyhedral symmetry by lengthening some parts." It is quite difficult, involving six complex, dissimilar pieces, and with six-way coordinate motion required for the assembly. (One of the photos shows the striking appearance of the coordinate assembly in progress.)

Coffin included a solution hint with his description of the puzzle, which I have copied below. Unless you are very brave, highly experienced with this sort of puzzle, and much better at puzzle solving than I am, you will want to use the solution hint. Victor is still quite challenging even with Coffin's hints, and if you're new to Coffin's polyhedral puzzles, I strongly recommend starting with one of the others (Triumph is a nice one; or see the Stewart Coffin Puzzles page for links to all of them).

Special thanks to Christoph Lohe for sharing a BurrTools file that made this model much easier to develop.

Printing Instructions

Print one copy of coffin.victor.pieces.stl. No supports needed. You do not need to print coffin.victor.solution-aid.stl unless you need additional help with the solution (beyond Coffin's hints); see the Solution Hints below for details.

This model uses a snap joint for one of the pieces to ensure that it can be printed without supports. After you print it, first connect all the joints before attempting to solve the puzzle. Snap each male connector into a corresponding female connector (for example, the male connector labeled "A" should connect to the female connector with a matching "A" label on the interior).

The joints are designed to be tight, and depending on the printer and filament used, you may need to hammer them into place. If they come out too loose, a drop of superglue will make them more solid (in most cases this shouldn't be necessary, but unfortunately tolerances vary across printers and filaments). The snap joint concept is discussed further in this tutorial: Getting Started with Puzzle Printing.

Solution Hints

I have included Coffin's solution hint diagram as one of the photos, which assigns to each of the six pieces a letter, spelling R-E-D-S-O-X. In Coffin's words:

"Assembly involves coordinate motion of all six dissimilar non-symmetrical pieces. As at least some aid to the difficult assembly, the pieces are marked R-E-D-S-O-X. To assemble, form a subassembly of pieces R-E-D clockwise. Then insert piece S opposite D, then O opposite R (only place it can go). To insert the last piece X, carefully expand the monster almost to the point of collapse and very carefully wiggle X into place."

I find that the final step of "wiggling" piece X into place is extremely difficult. If you get to that point and you're struggling with it, you may wish to print coffin.victor.solution-aid.stl. It's another copy of piece X, but broken into two components with a joint. This makes it much easier to complete the final step of the assembly:

• First assemble the R-E-D subassembly.
• Then set the smaller component of the X piece (the one with the female joint connector) into its proper place.
• Now adjoin pieces S and O to the assembly as usual.
• Finally, simply snap the larger X piece component into place, completing the assembly without coordinate motion.

Once you have a working assembled puzzle, you can experiment with the disassembly and get a feel for what is required for a "proper" assembly with the original, solid X piece.

Good luck.

The Printable Puzzle Project

The Printable Puzzle Project aims to make available high-quality open-source models of many puzzle designs. All of our models are posted with the generous permission of their designers and are licensed for non-commercial use only. Anyone may print copies for their own personal use, but selling or otherwise monetizing them is not permitted, and puzzle designers retain all rights as copyright holders of their work.

Our puzzles are modeled using the open-source puzzlecad library. The .scad file is included with this model in case you want to modify any of its design parameters; more information on how to do this can be found in the PPP Puzzle Modeling tutorial.

About the Designer

Stewart Coffin has been called "the most outstanding designer and maker of interlocking puzzles that the world has ever seen". He is credited with over four hundred designs, has pioneered numerous ingenious puzzle forms, and has written extensively about puzzle design and craftsmanship. More information on Coffin, along with many other printable models of his designs, can be found on the Stewart Coffin Puzzles overview page.

Happy puzzling!