An homage to my hand made shape modifications and their builders

The reason why I write this is a Ghost. I have to admit it became a lengthy monography. I hope that some will like it.

My first custom made puzzle was a shape modification, a Trajber's Octahedron casted by David Calzone.
I adored people who could make such wonderful things.
As of today, I'm still full of affection for handmade puzzles.
In May 2010 I have got my last for quite a while, before I could not resist Traiphum's offer for a handmade Hexaminx.
I received it in November 2013 and posted here.

Somehow I got infected by the virus of custom handmade puzzles again.

In January another wonderful Traiphum puzzle, his Megamorphix, arrived and I posted here.

Here are the two together


At the last day of the last year a coloured Ghost Cube from Hungab had arrived.
The original Ghost Cube from Adam G. Cowan (member puzzlemaster42) was always a special thing for me.
I bought it three years ago from Taylor.
Therefore, I thought that the coloured version would be a nice companion for it.
(Adam announced a Shapeways version here).

I'll tell more details about the Ghosts in a seperate post below.

When Hungab offered his Hexagonal Dipyramid at Ebay, I bit the bait another time.

It arrived at December 25th (!) at the customs office in Franfurt (Germany). It lived there well over a month. I got already nervous and wrote emails to Deutsche Post (German mail service) but they informed me that this is quite normal after Christmas. It arrived together with a letter from Deutsche Post that they will investigate the case further

Now they are safe in our house together:


When I took this photo with my four recent shapemod puzzles

I thought I should go on and write an homage to all my custom made shape modifications and their builders.

I made this photo first



To your left you find three casted puzzles from Josh Bostick (member Josh B):
1. 3x3x3 Cubeoctahedron with 14 colours
2. 3x3x3 Icosahedron
3. 3x3x3 Dodecahedron

Josh was very active at that time, but he has not posted lately.

In the centre of the photo you see my most recent additions
4. Hexaminx from Traiphum
5. 4x4x4 Megamorphix from Traiphum
6. 3x3x3 Ghost Cube from Hungab
7. 4x4x4 Hexagonal Dipyramid from Hungab

To the front you see my very first custom made puzzle
8. 3x3x3 Trajber's Octahedron from David Calzone.

And the only 3D-printed puzzle, my original Ghost Cube from Adam / Geert / Anthony / Taylor /Frank .

And last but not least I added four handmade puzzles from pinoycuber27 and the Draken from volker25670



To your left:

9. 3x3x3 Half Truncated Cube
10. Truncated 2x2x2
11. 3x3x3 Confused Pillow Cube
12. 3x3x3 Astral Cube (the last two names I got from pinoycuber27 and they are not known in the Museum)

To your front/right
13. Draken from Volker (Pyraminx truncated)

It is such a pleasure to touch the smooth surface and feel their weight in my hands. I'm really fond of these jewels and I admire their builders. (Obviously some more than others I'll not tell more.)

I have added a lot of Shapeways puzzles since I got my first handmade Traijber's Octahedron and naturally I like them, too. Many are much more sophisticated than the 3x3x3 shape modifications, but I miss the touch and feel of the casted puzzles. Maybe a time will come where heavy and smooth 3D printed puzzles become a standard. Talking about smoothness: My Bubbloid122 from Carl (wwwmwww), tumbled by Brandon (bmenrigh) is as smooth as I can dream for.

And the weight of the 3D printed Ghost is really nice.

As I said above: I got the original Ghost Cube three years ago from Taylor and here is the story about the two Ghosts.
Many "old hands" will remember Taylor.
I hope he will read this and recognize his old friend. (He has a "Total Posts" count of 0 nowadays, because he got deleted all his former post, but he seems still to log in.)

Taylor told me that he got the Ghost Cube from Geert and the white stickers from Frank (flambore).
I have known Frank from his posts only, but the fact tells a lot that you can still see on the TP sidebar that he is not forgotten.

Here is the story I got from Geert about it When I compared the new handmade coloured version from Hungab with mine from Geert/Taylor, I recognized that my original version looked a bit different. I compared it with pictures from Adam and found that Geert has obviously swapped two 3x3x3 centres that are mirrored.
Here is a comparison of pictures of Adam's and mine, when I solve it to a similar pattern as on Adam's pictures.
In each line you see first Adam's picture followed by two pictures to of mine in frontview / backview fashion .
I marked the two centres with a red dot, which would need swapping.

The Hungab version is quite similar to Adam's pictures, just the cuts differ a tiny bit.

I sent PMs to Adam and Geert and with some advice from them I summoned up my courage and swapped the two centres in question. The centres were not glued on, Geert had just used a tiny piece of paper to fix the Ghost centres to a normal DIY core.

It seems interesting that my original version was assembled differently and could still be solved to a perfect cube shape.
I like it better, though, that the two look now almost identical.

Why do I view my original Ghost as something special?
- It is one of the first two ever made.
- The weight is really nice (208 g), quite heavy compared with other 3x3x3 (e.g. Guhong = 80 g) The material is quite different from Shapeways WSF and much heavier. Maybe Geert will recollect what it is.
- The white stickers are a hidden link to Frank (flambore)
- For me, it was the most confusing and dazzling solve of all 3x3x3 shape modifications.

And now Hungab's coloured handmade Ghost
- weight 136 g
- size 57x57x57 mm - It is a bit smaller than the original
- It is a nice complement to the original black and white.

Beautiful!

On a sidenote,

must.....sell.....to....Konrad....

You are a fast reader! 1 minute for two lengthy posts.

They don't call me the speed-master for nothing!
Do you prefer white or black plastic?

Usually black.
But I had more poblems with bubbling stickers with black casts!
You can check this topic.

Obviously, plastic sheet doesn't cause this problem.

*drools at cubes* Wow..

I'll likely never be able to have the ghost cubes but they are mighty intriguing to me! That hexagonal is just.. awesome

That's a beautiful little family of hand mods Konrad, and a very interesting historical story. I love hand mods!

The material is SLS Nylon, the same as Shapeways WSF, but these pieces are printed solid instead of shelled (hollow).


Very nice collection! Always nice to see some of the one-of-a-kind puzzles show up on the forum again...

Perhaps printed by Materialise? Their prints seem much harder and less flexible.