This puzzle was inspired by my wife. I was playing around with some scrap wood, practicing different types of cuts. One of the pieces was a swirly piece that she said looked like a dragon tail. The only problem, she said, was that it was easy to figure out where it went in the collection of pieces. Ah Ha! Inspiration! What if there is a bunch of them in the same puzzle?
(The piece shape is a copy of one of the Creative piece styles developed by John Stokes. I will discuss this in more detail at the end of this entry.)
I started with a cherry plywood blank that was 8 1/2 x 7 1/2 in dimension. Cherry is one of my favorite woods due to its pure beauty. I was able to obtain some sheets of 1/4″ Appleply from States Industries before COVID happened. This is nice quality plywood with plain sawn grain on one side and quarter sawn on the other side.
Next was to put a decorative edge on it.
And then on to cutting! Here is the first piece.
Once the pieces are all cut, it is time to sand the fuzzy whiskers off.
Next was to apply some finish. I opted to apply Watco Danish Oil in four different tints on the pretty grain side, and to paint the quartersawn side. To do this, I disassembled the pieces and split them into different piles.
Next was painting. I did not take pictures of this process, but here is the collection of painted pieces.
Next was to assemble it for photographs for this blog and the Etsy listing. Who am I kidding? I couldn’t wait to test drive it!
So there you have it. A Dragon Tail puzzle. This is listed on my Etsy shop for sale at FiveFrogsWoodworking – Etsy. If it is not there, it has been sold. You can email me direct if you would like to order another one.
Happy Puzzling!
Bob
I mentioned at the beginning that this piece design was from the work of John Stokes. Although he has closed his puzzle cutting business, he has maintained his extensive online puzzle journals for public viewing at http://www.custompuzzlecraft.com. In the cutting styles section, he discusses how he came to develop his creative piece styles. You can see some examples of his creative style in the picture below.
