Isn’t it funny–you may start out with a single Rainbow Stacker–but they just seem to multiply! Since first writing the first post about picking a rainbow stacker, a few more have joined our ranks!
From top to bottom:
Grimm’s Mini
Myer’s Natural 6-piece
Grimm’s Medium
Ocamora 6-piece
Naef
Sabo Concept
Grimm’s 10-piece
Myer’s Natrual 12-piece
Grimm’s 12-piece
Bauspiel XL
Today we’re going to look at the new additions, and add a few more comparisons between brands and sizes.
Below, is one arch from each of these Rainbows, Left to right aligns with top-to-bottom, showing texture, thickness and style
All but two of these rainbows have chamfered edges: Naef has very straight square edges, and Sabo Concept has very smoothed rounded edges. The rainbows also come in a variety of depths and thicknesses.
Before we dive into the details, here’s one more view of the vertical stack, with everything aligned on the left, to show of the variety in sizes.
The mini Grimm’s at the top fits in an adult hand, the extra large Bauspiel at the bottom is a two-handed carry for most people.
The first new arrival in our flock was the Sabo Rainbows. Sabo works with muted earthy colors, and applies their color as a paint. You can see wood grain through it, but not as much as with other brands. The texture is buttery soft, but still grippy enough to stack. At 4cm thick, these rainbows build beautifully with Grimm’s and Just Blocks. From my two-rainbow experience, the arches are interchangeable between stackers. Here I’ve mixed up the inner and outer rings of two rainbows.
Bauspiel’s Giant rainbow is exactly that–Giant. each arch is 2.5 cm wide and 5 cm deep making it the sturdiest rainbow we have. really each piece is like a block than an arch–a real asset when building! But even in it’s enormous size, its grippy texture allows it to build balancy stacks and the even cuts mean it can do that satisfying rainbow collapse. The strikingly different dimensions mean this one functions very differently from most other rainbows.
The Naef Rainbow stacker is our most recent arrival. Unlike the other rainbows each of which are cut from a single block of wood, the Naef rainbow is made of bentwood, which creates those striking lines on the edges of the rainbow. The edges are grippy, but the arches are very smooth. It can be purchased with or without the ball and mallet–both used to encourage play with the tones of the arches.
Ready for a few more updates and comparisons?
Lets start with Myer’s Natural Toys: they now work with cherry wood instead of maple–you used to hear that Myer’s could be tricky to stack–while still not as grippy as grimms, the new cherry rainbows are more textured and grippier!
Also–check out the sizing here: on the left is an uncolored maple rainbow, on the right, the 5 inner arches of a full-sized colored cherry rainbow: the 6-arch rainbow is the same size as the inner 5 of the large giving it beautiful proportions. And yes–just like it looks–the arches are interchangeable between them
You can look at rainbows by their overall size, but its also worth considering the number of arches.
For example: not all 6-piece rainbows are the same size.
From Front to back: the Grimm’s mini, the Myer’s Naturals 6-piece, the Grimm’s Medium and the Ocamora 6-piece.
Rainbows between 7-11 arches:
From front to back, the 9-piece Naef, a Grimm’s 10-piece rainbow and the Bauspiel 10-piece rainbow
The 12-piece rainbows (Myer’s Natruals, front and Grimm’s back) we have are nearly identical in size–the difference is slight enough it could easily be attributed to the variation from one cut to the next.
Isn’t it fantastic that there are so many rainbow options, one to fit any aesthetic and style of play? If you’d like to browse for rainbows, I’ve pulled together a few retailers here: Who sells it? – Building With Rainbows
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Updates or thoughts on Bauspiel? I’m so drawn to their colors but am not sure about how you feel they play for stacking, marble runs, building, etc.
Ooh! the Bauspiel is So beautiful isn’t it? a well-cut Grimm’s is still the most rewarding for balancy stacks (but I have one Grimm’s that is horrible for stacking, so they’re not all cut equal). Bauspiel cuts seem more precise, but the narrower arch (5 cm vs 7) is a little trickier to stack. In ball runs they function really differently. the Bauspiel is really more like large curved blocks (awesome!) but doesn’t work as a substitute for a Grimms, if that makes sense–really the two play very differently, and one is not redundant to the other, in my opinion.