A Diabolical Puzzle

My wife gave birth to our first child on August 25th, 2012.  I took 6 weeks off of work to help out, which ended up being more necessary than we expected.  A vacation it was not.  But we got a pretty cool kid out of the deal, so no biggie.

In any case, my time in the wood shop has been less often, for shorter durations, and with more interruptions lately.  I tried to find tiny projects I could complete in 90 minutes or so after he and my wife went to bed.

This is a little puzzle I found on Roy Underhill's The Woodwright's School website.  Casse-Tete Diabolique, which is French for Diabolical Puzzle.

I made it out of scrap hem-fir as an initial practice attempt, using only hand tools.  This was wise because I learned the importance of hard wood and tight-fitting joints for this particular puzzle.  The more it gets used, the more the wood gets pushed around, the looser it becomes, and the easier it is to solve.  Though I find it interesting that while it's incredibly easy for people to take apart, they never remember what it looked like initially to put it back together.  :P