This puzzle was inspired by the 3x3x3 dovetailed cube that Wayne produced a few years ago. With permission and a little advice I decided to look into reproducing the design. I quickly realized how many possibilities existed in the 3x3 format, and decided to start with a 2x2. I brought Ronald in because his burrtools kung fu is far superior to mine...lucky for me he was in a design slump, so he picked up my gauntlet and ran with it.
The result is this optimized level three beauty. The four pairs of identical pieces come together in a somewhat unexpected way. While not terribly difficult, it's a fun puzzle to solve and manipulate, and it displays very well. I was worried about humidity binding it up, so the fit is intentionally somewhat loose in the dry weather we have been having.

A lot of detail work went into this puzzle. Not only are the eight sapele cubes from the same plank, they were ripped from the same stick, sequentially, and kept together during the milling process to ensure