Two Burrs in a Basket

In Two Burrs in a Corner, one of the challenges was two create two burrs simultaneously from 12 sticks. In Two Burrs in a Basket, instead of 12 sticks, there are 6 sticks and 6 boards. Again there is a unique way to make two burrs simultaneously, but you don't know in advance whether one burr should be made only of sticks and the other of boards, or whether they should both be mixed stick-board burrs. It turns out they are both mixed burrs (one with 4 sticks and 2 boards, the other with 2 sticks and 4 boards), and moreover, one of them is a record-setting mixed burr.
The difficulty of Two Burrs in a Corner was much more because of the "Two Burrs" challenge than the "in a Corner" challenge. I wanted an easy challenge so people wouldn't be too frustrated if they needed help for the "Two Burrs" part. Well, this time I decided to go in a different direction. The "in a Basket" challenge is by itself quite difficult, and it's of a very different character than the "in a Corner" challenge, and visually I think it is unusual. The basket also provides a way to display the solved "two burrs." Check out puzzle P6 to see how you can fit both burrs into the basket (there are multiple ways to orient the burrs relative to each other and the basket, so this isn't a unique-solution challenge, but it's an attractive way to display everything together, I think).

Construction of this puzzle was painstaking, with bevels everywhere, through joinery on the cage and a nice lap joint for the handle. It was a lot of work to make! Fit is dead-on, the pieces move perfectly among themselves and within the basket in normal humidity.

46 copies made for sale, each signed and dated. This puzzle is shipped assembled.