Leather and String Puzzle
| Materials Required: | A strip of thick leather, 7 inches long by 2 wide, |
| A piece of heavy linen string a foot long, | |
| A knife. |
Fig. 9
With a sharp knife, a small strip of leather and a bit of strong string any boy can make this simple puzzle. It is easier to make, however, than it is to do, as the boy's friends will discover. Fig. 9 will show how it is made. A strip of leather five and a half inches long, an inch and a quarter wide at one end and five-eighths of an inch at the other, is first cut. Then, starting at about five-eighths of an inch from the narrow end, cut with a sharp knife two slits down the middle of the piece three-eighths of an inch apart and three inches long. At three-eighths of an inch from the wide end a small piece, one-quarter of an inch square, is cut out of the middle of the strip (see Fig. 9). From the scraps of leather remaining cut two pieces, each one inch long by five-eighths of an inch wide. Make a hole in the middle of each. Then pass a piece of stout linen cord eleven inches long back of the long, open strip in the large piece of leather, leaving the ends of equal length. Pass both ends down through the square hole and tie each of them securely through the hole in the middle of one of the small pieces of leather. This completes it.
Fig. 10
The object is to try to get the string, with the small piece of leather at either end, off the large piece of leather without cutting or untying it. The only way to do this is shown in Fig. 10. Holding both ends of the string, close to where it passes back of the narrow strip in the middle of the large piece of leather, pull the strip out through the small square hole. One of the small pieces of leather can then be slipped through the loop thus formed, releasing the string.