Cast Nutcase

On Wednesday March 23rd luxige wrote,

The only puzzling thing about this is how anyone could consider rating it at the highest level of difficulty. Compare to Cylinder, which has a somewhat similar safecracking concept. Cylinder is rated Level 8 (Hanayama 4) and is clearly harder, particularly since its inner workings are hidden. Nutcase gives up its secret upon a short examination of it. As others said, it should be rated two or even three levels lower. That said, it's not a bad puzzle if you're looking for a mild challenge, and it looks good.

On Tuesday February 24th Chado wrote,

Took me about an hour, but didn't pay attention, so took some time to get it back together. Enjoyed

On Sunday September 28th kbantikos wrote,

Not a bad puzzle but i would not describe it as category 10 rather 7 to 8. Not to difficult to solve but you must treat it with caution cause in my case the spiral suffered from stress by the nut and now the nut does not go up or down.

On Thursday April 4th Shaggy wrote,

I like this puzzle very much. It might become trite for me saying this for almost every new Cast puzzle I buy lately, but this is one of the best Cast puzzle in my opinion. I came out with an idea of the solution after seeing the picture of the puzzle several times on the list with Cast puzzles. Then, when I got it, it was a matter of time, proper position and light direction to understand what is the inner part of the two nuts. After that I still had some difficulties to implement the correct solution. I even almost opened the case once, but was too fast and closed it before I can stop the further movement of the nuts. The solution is very precise, original, logical and beautiful. In general, one of the hardest. And the design is great.

On Sunday December 11th puldis wrote,

Too easy for rating, took 5min for me and 5min for a friend.

On Friday January 7th Thomas wrote,

This one is tricky and once you get it you can put it back together really easy.. Neat puzzle. Not too hard.

On Thursday June 3rd Chris the Vet wrote,

Have 'Solved' this one, but not able to take apart to extract the bolt; Also have a problem with the nuts crossing threads and binding. Not all that impressed. Just too fiddly

On Tuesday June 1st John wrote,

solved in a few minutes useless stuff

On Saturday October 31st mitek wrote,

It's not really "unbelievably difficult" , as some suggested (took me about 45 min overall to solve it), but it does require some thinking on how it might be made inside. This is one of the few "logical" puzzles, where you can just guess the internal structure and act accordingly. If you don't, it may indeed appear "unbelievably difficult". For some reason, solving this one reminded me lock-picking techniques -- it's the same kind of approach. It doesn't look as cool as some other puzzles, but is definitely worth cracking :)

On Tuesday September 15th Paul wrote,

Very disappointed in this one. The construction is not up to par with other Hanayama puzzles. The nuts on mine are so loose that you can 'cheat' the puzzle apart without solving it. In addition, the looseness gives a huge visual cue as to the solution. A five minute puzzle at our house. Perhaps this is from a bad lot and a better made copy would have been a worthy contender.

On Thursday April 2nd Deimos wrote,

Giving it a 3. There is no "trick" in this one. And although its sturdy, mine had some binding and didn't turn well in some places. Fairly simple to deduce inner workings after a quick glance... its just a matter of lots of trial and error... and patience for 5-60min of fiddling. Ironically, solved first time in 5min, and showing to friend took almost and hour to disassemble. There is also alternate solution if your puzzle happens to be well worn in which was my first attempt ;)

On Wednesday February 4th Patrick wrote,

Fairly simple puzzle. I was a little disappointing that it only took a few minutes to figure this one out. I thought it may be a fluke that i figured it out so quick so i brought it to work. 3 other people were able to solve it under 15 minutes. Nice puzzle but not a level 10.

On Saturday January 17th MadnessR wrote,

Good looking puzzle. Not a hard solve.. Mine just came apart with some fiddling. I was hoping for some heavier metal. Feels light like cast disk...Not my fav...

On Saturday January 17th Brian wrote,

I'm sort of on the fence about this one. Fairly interesting concept for a puzzle, but I don't like the fact that there was so much trial and error involved.

On Tuesday January 13th Olga wrote,

This is my favorite one. Very difficult, but possible.

On Saturday January 10th Marilyn wrote,

I found this to be easier than I expected compared to some other 6 star Hanayamas. I'd recommend it as a 'beginner' level 10.

On Friday January 9th Tom Swirly wrote,

So. I thought it was incredibly hard... several Google engineers tried it without success - but I gave it to an artist friend of mine and she solved it in a few minutes without the internet (but then, she spends a heck of a lot of time with bolts...)

On Tuesday December 2nd George wrote,

Unbelievably difficult and the solution is not intuitive. Not recommended.

On Friday October 24th Pentti wrote,

This was quite hard, but i didn´t like it as much as the other 6 star Hanayamas.