With the new shop, more or less, up and running we will be able to turn some gifts again. So pens, keychains and the like and something new. Technically the biggest wood gift this year is not turned wood but at least it is mounted on wood.
After working on a number of Liberty Puzzles (Liberty Puzzles) and watching a ton of YouTube videos I decided to try my hand at cutting my own puzzles. Far more involved than you might think. In some ways the trickiest bit was attaching the picture to the wood blank (1/4" Basswood Plywood, couldn't find Baltic Birch in the right size for a reasonable price).
I have cut two prototypes and I'm confident that I won't completely screw up a Christmas present at this point so I hope to start cutting the real thing this week. Each puzzle will be numbered and include the piece count on the back. The traditional method of custom puzzle cutters.
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| I'm doing 8"x10" photos. Ideally they should end up between 150-180 pieces. The little iron is used to take the dry mount tissue to the back of the image. Then the photo is placed on the wood and the whole thing is put in the Dry Mount Press (I bought a used one, the temperature on mind seems to be a little off) |
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| I tried to show the pieces from the back (which has to be sanded after the cutting is finished). There isn't quite enough contrast to see it easily. I built two little jigs to serve as trays to hold the pieces as I cut them. |
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| Here is the front. Its easier to see the puzzle shapes here. This is prototype #2 and is a 163 pieces. Prototype #1 was only a 137 pieces so I needed to concentrate on making the pieces a bit smaller. Ideally I need to cut 2.5 pieces from each square inch of puzzle. |
While this is fun to do it is time consuming so I'll be turning to the laser cutter to see I can make a go of it that way for the next time around.
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