Jigsaw Puzzle -A Big One

There is light at the end of the tunnel for the Christmas Jigsaw puzzles. This is my first larger puzzle. This is a an 11x14" version of the Spanish Windmills, a photograph taken by my Dad on one of their trips to Europe. My goal was to create a puzzle somewhere between 385 and 400 pieces. I missed the goal by a bit with the final count being 370. It should be occupy my Mom for a couple of hours (who routinely does a couple of 1000 piece puzzles a week).

This is where it all starts. Photo is dry mounted to a piece of 5ply baltic birch plywood. Then I decide where the Whimsies will go.

Because of the size I made the first cuts down the middle to keep things easier to work with.

Working from left to right, here I have finished cutting the windmill. I put the puzzle together as its cut.

The next section to cut

Its been a bit of process but progress is being made

Left side is done, ready to move to the right.

Taking a slight different approach I'm working from the bottom up.

Puzzle is finished, here you can see what it looks like from the back side. I sand all of this down again so its nice and smooth.

Here is the finished 370 piece puzzle.

Jigsaw Puzzle - Mistakes!

I have been working on my jigsaw puzzle cutting skills. There is an idea in the back of my mind that this could be my retirement "job". We will see if that comes about, retirement is starting to creep up on the horizon though.

From Oct - Nov 2022 I cut 9 puzzles. I consider two of those to be prototypes and I put out for people to put together. Seven of those were family gifts. This year we have expanded things a bit. I'm cutting 14 puzzles this year, including two that are 11x14 rather than the 8x10s I have been doing. One of those I made a mistake on and I don't feel right giving it out as a gift so it will become another display puzzle,

I start with a picture and a piece of 5 ply baltic birch plywood I then use a dry mount press to mount them together. We purchased a smaller used press last year and it works okay. This year I used it on the first two puzzles and I just wasn't getting a good bond. Out of frustration I went looking for another used one that was in better shape and I found one on eBay that was local and we could pick it up. These presses are heavy and I really didn't want to try and have it shipped. This one is a bit bigger and worked like a charm. However, there was a bit of learning curve with it. I used the same settings and timing I used on the original press and that didn't really end well.

This is what happens when you apply to much heat for to long a period of time:

I think this particular image is cursed. This is the same image that I messed up a cut bad enough to tear it and thus making it only good for a display puzzle to put together on the table.

Jigsaw Puzzles for 2023

One of the things that has been occupying my time is cutting jigsaw puzzles for Christmas. I actually started cutting in October because we are expanding how many we are giving out for gits. Here is what is on the list for this year:

Here is the first batch of 8x10s

The next batch, including three bigger puzzles. 1 is 11x14, the bright orange one is 10x14 and then a panoramic photo that is 8x20.

I had already finished three puzzles so these are not included in the first two photos.

This one was going to be for my wife, but she decided she would rather have the Spanish Windmill shot instead. I'll end with with three of the Spanish Windmills in 8x10 and one 11x14.

Unfortunately with all the puzzle cutting I forgot about printing Christmas cards this year so we are going commercial with those!

Jigsaw Puzzles - Christmas Puzzles Next One Up

The parade of puzzles continues with "The Pine" this is a picture I took about 40 years ago when we hiked up to the 4th of July Mine above Eldora CO. The original is a slide that I had converted to a jpg file. I should have run it through some editing software first but I can do that with the next print I have made from this file.

I decided to do a more start to finish on this one.

This time around I opted to work my way around and do the entire edge first. I have been experimenting with the best way to start and puzzle and this seems to work the best for me.
Top Edge

Adding the left edge

Working across the bottom

And back up to the top.

And this is what's left after I have cut the edge away.

This one came in at 173 pieces (which is right in the range I was shooting for), it could have been a couple more but I decided to not cut any of the whimsies into multiple parts. I think this one is going to be a pretty hard to complete there isn't a whole lot to distinguish one tree from another.

Jigsaw Puzzles - Christmas Puzzles Started

I have finished off two Christmas puzzles. Not terribly happy with some of the cuts on the first one, so I may just hold that one back as a display puzzle. Here is the one I finished this week. This one came in at 216 pieces, which means I'm cutting some of the pieces to small. I'm shooting for 180 - 200 pieces for 8"x10" puzzles so I'm overthinking things a bit at the scroll saw. I use some templates I created for the "whimsies" other than that everything is cut freehand.

This is a Carol Highsmith photo from the Library of Congress. She donated her entire portfolio to the LOC.

After I finish a cutting there is a lot of sanding to be done on the back before I can wrap it up. Sometimes its easier to see the shapes from this side.

Roxborough Park Wood Jigsaw Puzzle

The photo I used for this puzzle is looking north up the front range from the entrance to Roxborough Park. I think I took this about 10 years ago now. It took about six hours to finish this puzzle including the prep and finish work.

The picture is dry mounted to a piece of 5 ply baltic birch plywood. First step is to locate the whimsey pieces. I use low tack tape from 3M and traced the pieces on to the tape. 

I have been cutting out the edge first and then work my way into the center. This time I decided to cut the whimsey pieces out first.

I cut up the rest of the puzzle into larger pieces to work with,

Here are the two small sky pieces cut into pieces. I do assemble the puzzle as I cut it.

The mid sky, and the other two corner sections.

One section left!

All cut out.

I then flipped it over and sanded the back so it was nice and smooth again.

After all that I attached a smaller version of the picture to the top of a wood box that I picked up from Michael's. I counted all the pieces (206), put them in a ziplock bag and dropped it in the box, which I forgot to take a picture of...oops. One present down,

Christmas Puzzling...Again

I eventually learn my lessons and I have started working on the puzzles for Christmas. We are doing a few more puzzles than last year and at least one of them will be my first foray into a larger version, 11x14, as opposed to the 8x10 that I have been working on so far. I expect that one will end between 300-400 pieces at the end.

So these are the photos that I have mounted to this point, there are a few more coming. I also discovered that I'm going to need more 1/4" 5 ply birch plywood so I'm looking for a reasonable source for that. So once more into the breach!

Four of the photos are mine, the Spanish windmill is one of my Dad's and the car photo is a Carol Highsmith photo from the Library of Congress. She donated her entire body of work to the LOC and they are available to the public now.

I do promise to keep moving forward on the Normandy Church though!

Christmas Productions - Complete

Everything is done! We were running into issues with the ink drying fast enough so we elected not to put a print on the reverse. My wife did a little bit of calligraphy on the backs instead and that's how they are going out. Most are already in the mail, plenty of time for Christmas.

I also finished all of the puzzles. I have cut 9 of these over the past month or so. Two will do service as "demo" puzzles, just something to have out on the table when we do a craft fair. The other seven are for family and are done in plenty of time to be wrapped without stressing over getting them done!

The two on the left are the prototypes, the six in the middle are for my family and the one on the right is for my wife's. I tried to select pictures that had some meaning for the recipient. The exception to that is the mountain shot. That's a bit more generic but its one of my favorite photographs so I guess it has meaning to me!

Christmas Productions - Progress on the Roscoe Puzzle

There is a bit of history behind this picture of Roscoe, who passed away about six months after this Christmas picture. Its the last Christmas we celebrated in my Mom's condo in Boulder CO, just west of the Pearl Street Mall. Roscoe was my Dad's Portuguese Water Dog, when he passed (Oct 2015) away Roscoe and my Mom moved into the Boulder condo. Going from 5 1/2 acres of backyard was a little tough on Roscoe and my Mom just couldn't keep up with his energy. He did adapt pretty well to condo living though. So my sister took Roscoe to live with her in Seattle. She had a condo about 3 blocks from the Space Needle and he had a grand time living there. He had been ill just before Christmas and they were still doing tests, if you look closely you can see that his right leg has a shaved spot for an IV. He spent a very energetic Christmas with all the people he loved and he passed away about six months later.

It should be a pretty special picture for my sister, I don't think she even knows I took this photo at the time. It took about another hour or so to finish cutting this one up. I wanted to be sure to capture his eyes as a single piece otherwise they would be lost in all that black fur. I cut the nose and mouth as a single piece as well. The piece count on this one is a bit smaller than the last few I cut; 163 pieces down from about 180. My goal is to hit about 185 or so which is 2.3 pieces per square inch for an 8x10 puzzle, I figure anything over 160 is pretty good at this point. The number of pieces directly affects how difficult the puzzle is and you increase the difficulty by disguising corners and using a non-grid cutting technique (usually just referred to as random) but adding whimsies reduces the difficulty, a bit, because it gives the solver something pretty specific to build from.

There are a couple of things that I'm working on the most; cutting the whimsies (typically involving some pretty extreme changes in direction) and making sure that I'm cutting good interlocks so the puzzle doesn't completely fall apart while you are putting it together!

Here are the final steps finishing up the Roscoe Puzzle:

I had finished the edge previously and this is my second time around as I work to the inside. If you look close you can see that a couple of whimsies have already been cut out.

This is  probably my third or fourth pass, I think all the whimsies have been cut out at this point. 

Here is the part that still needs to be cut out after that last round of cutting.

Down to the last bit here.

The three important pieces I want to be sure to cut; eyes as a single piece, nose and mouth as a single piece and his dog tag as a single piece.

All cut out! Time to flip it over and sand the back down. This is why I have to of this little jigs with only two sides. Its easy to sandwich the puzzle between them and flip the whole thing over without creating a huge mess. For sanding I start with 180 grit followed by 220 and then 320. The both sides of the plywood (basswood in this case) were already sanded down to 320 before I started but all the cut out from the cutting has to be sanded down after I'm finished.

The  most fun a person can have, counting puzzle pieces. I do stacks of five and just line them up till there are no more to stack! 163 pieces for this one.

Christmas Productions - Puzzles and Cards

I have finished a 50 card run of the Christmas card in red ink. These will need to dry before I can do the black on the reverse. That should give me time to at least carve the block for the reverse side now!

On the puzzle front here are a couple of in progress shots just to show a little of how I go about doing it. I don't know if other puzzle cutters approach it the same way or not.  There are a fair number of them out there that do this as a business.

Again, I use a frame to keep it all together and place each piece as I cut it. Here the edge is all cut out.

That leaves a a large middle piece to keep moving forward with.

I skewed it here just to show a bit more of what is going on.
On the second pass I'll probably start cutting out at least a couple of the whimsies based on their locations. I also want to use as few pieces as possible for the face, I don't want to cut up poor Roscoe to much.