Bag o' Tangles is the Two Brass Monkeys’ playful twist on three of the orderly tangles described by Alan Holden in his 1983 book Orderly Tangles: Cloverleafs, Gordian Knots, and Regular Polylinks.
This set includes three interlocking puzzles. Can you assemble four equilateral triangles, six squares, and six pentagons into stable, self-supporting structures? All the brass rods have the same 6mm diameter, and the lengths have been fine-tuned—through a mix of mathematical modelling and good old-fashioned trial and error—to lock together snugly once built. Will they nest inside one another? Maybe. Maybe not. That’s for you to discover.
Each set includes one red, one green, and one blue puzzle—colours are assigned randomly, so the small red triangle version you see in the picture might arrive as green or blue. The square-based puzzle arrives pre-assembled (don’t ask—it’s a long story), while the triangle and pentagon ones come in pieces, ready for you to solve.
Brass bars, 3D printed PLA connectors, and a healthy dose of curiosity—once assembled, the puzzles measure approximately 5, 7, and 9 cm in diameter.
Geometry never looked this good in brass and plastic, they're not just a puzzle, they're a conversation piece.