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.
1/4″ Cherry Appleply, plain sawn
Next was to put a decorative edge on it.
Decorative edge cut on all four sides
And then on to cutting! Here is the first piece.
The first dragon tail piece cut out
Once the pieces are all cut, it is time to sand the fuzzy whiskers off.
Cut and sanded puzzle
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.
Applying oil by hand (finger!)
Next was painting. I did not take pictures of this process, but here is the collection of painted pieces.
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!
First pieces assembledMore pieces going togetherAlmost done!One side of the finished puzzle.The other side of the finished puzzle
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.
Last summer, I found a roughly 8″ x 8″ piece of scrap cherry plywood in the shop that was begging for some attention. I decided to do something a little different for me.
First, I cut the puzzle using my usual piece shapes. However, I did put a number of little frog pieces along the edges. Some were at the corners and some were split. Here is the cut puzzle.
The second thing a little different was to paint the pieces using some acrylic paint I found at Hobby Lobby. I split the pieces into six different piles corresponding to each color of paint.
I then took them outside on a piece of cardboard to paint.
Here they are back in the shop
Now, to assemble them to take pictures.
The completed puzzle!
The backside was finished with an oil finish.
Here is a collection of the frog pieces.
This was listed and sold on Etsy.
Happy Puzzling!
Bob
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I have made a number of these pin oak leaf puzzles from one 13 x 19 print. I wanted to make one puzzle as wide as possible, which would be the 19″ width for me. To do that, I needed three prints to make it work. I used two 13 x 19 prints with one 8.5 x 11 print for the tip of the leaf.
Here they are laid end to end on the work bench.
This will be the first merge that I make. Notice the alignment marks printed with the image. These are so I can stack these on top of each other and have them perfectly aligned.
The first step is to take a smaller piece of the middle print to make it easier to handle on the saw.
I did not realize it initially, but this very first cut had a bad blade that had a bent tooth or something. It made this cut a little wonky, as can be seen when compared to neighboring cuts later. It just stands out a little more and is a slight visual discrepancy on the puzzle.
So, now that I have a smaller piece to work with, it is time to cut out pieces so I can use the alignment marks to prepare for stack cutting.
Next is to stack this piece on top of the other one, and align the marks and then glue the two together.
Now, you make a double stack cut on both panels at once so you can join them together and not see they were two different panels.
Next, you do the same thing on the bottom of the leaf.
And there you have one big leaf puzzle!
Next, cut away the white waste. Check out all the debris on the floor.
Now you are left with one big puzzle from three prints!
I decided I wanted some dropouts in the leaf. I picked some other leaves from the yard: a different pin oak, red oak, birch, lilac, currant, tulip tree, two different maple trees, and a grape leaf.
Many hours of cutting later,
So, there you have it. Three prints merged into one large puzzle. It is 27 1/4″ long and 18.3″ wide. It has 291 pieces.
I had a wild idea to apply shellac to the backsides of puzzles before cutting them. Why shellac? Well, for one, it does not really stink up the basement like other finishes do. The solvent is alcohol. Shellac is made with ground up flakes of shellac and almost pure alcohol. There is really no obnoxious smell coming off of that Everclear!! Another reason was that I figured that with the finish already on the back of the wood, there would be less splintering after cutting. And third, I just love the look of shellac on cherry. (Edit: I did not want to apply the shellac after cutting because it would likely run down between the pieces and glue them all back together. And, unlike an oil finish like I show below, I did not want to hand apply shellac to individual pieces.)
I decided to try this out. So, I grabbed a small piece of left-over cherry plywood. I started applying thin coats of shellac to the backside of the wood. On this side of the wood, the cherry ply is plain sawn, so it has a lot of beautiful figure. While waiting for one coat to dry, I did a little reading to learn more about shellac. I saw a comment that it was not a good finish for a dinner table, as a hot coffee cup or pot will melt it. It turns out that a dried shellac finish will soften at about 150 degrees. This is a problem for me, as I use a dry mount press to mount my photos. This process operates at about 180 degrees. So, no go on the shellac. I decided to go ahead and finish with this experiment anyway and applied 6 coats of shellac to the back.
Next, I took the board down to the shop to do some cutting. At first, I tried to cut with the shellac face down on the scroll saw table. It turns out the shellac was just a little soft, and it made it harder to move the wood around while cutting it. Maybe I should have waited an entire week to give it more cure time? It did prove to be relatively splinter free, though. No fuzzy wood whiskers after cutting!
I ended up flipping the board over so the shellac was up. Then, I just decided to practice my scrolling cuts. This picture is with the shellac side up. (Edit: the pieces in this picture that seem a little fuzzy on the edges are the ones that were cut with the shellac side down. There was no splintering, but the sawdust kind of hung onto the wood. It was easily cleaned off with a soft rag when done cutting.)
After cutting, I decided to use four different tints of Danish oil on the other side. Here, the cherry ply is quarter sawn, so is not quite as interesting visually. Cherry is already a dark wood, so the impact of the tints is very subtle. The four pieces of Baltic Birch in the picture below were also tinted for a comparison.
Here is the finished front side of the puzzle.
This is actually a beautiful puzzle and my cell phone photos do not do it justice.
This puzzle is 7.5″ by 8.375″ and has 72 pieces to it. It is made from 1/4″ cherry Appleply. After applying the finish and allowing drying time, I had to reassemble the puzzle to take pictures. For such a relatively small puzzle, it took me 90 minutes!
So, the shellac idea is kind of a bust. It does reduce the fuzzy whiskers when done with cutting but is really impractical for what I wanted. I did make a cool puzzle out of it, though. This will be listed on my Etsy store. I wonder how long it will last? (Edit: 36 minutes. Much faster than I hoped for!)
One of the major issues I have had to learn to deal with is that of paper issues. Specifically, photographic printer paper issues. These issues fall into a few categories which include:
Paper type vs ink type
Paper delamination
Paper adhesion to base material
Someone who is just getting started out in this puzzle cutting world may want to read about my discoveries. I am not formally educated on this subject. My lessons come from the school of hard knocks, and other people’s experiences may vary from my own.
Paper Type vs Ink Type
For those who do not know or pay much attention to it, there are two basic types of ink jet inks: dye-based inks, and pigment-based inks. A dye-based ink has the colorant completely dissolved in the carrier fluid, whereas pigment-based inks have very small little particles suspended in the carrier fluid. Not all photo papers accept both types of ink. I started printing with a small inexpensive HP printer that only printed up to 8 1/2″ x 11″ prints. This printer used dye-based ink, so my paper was good for dye-based inks. I successfully printed out many images with this printer and cut them up into puzzles.
Wanting to increase my size range, I obtained a used Epson printer that would print 13″ x 19″ prints. It actually had an attachment so you could print a roll of 13″ wide paper that was some number of feet long. It was a nice printer that turned out to use pigment-based inks. I brought it home and set it up with new ink cartridges. I cleaned the heads using the specified process. I printed some test papers using plain printer paper, and then I ran a test print using some old Kodak photo paper that was laying around. It all worked great. But, the first time I ran my old puzzle photo paper through it, I had a real mess on my hands. The small particles in the pigment ink would not absorb properly into the printer paper and sat on the surface of the print and did not dry. Silly ol’ me, I ran three copies of the print at once and they stacked up on each other. They stuck together and the images were horrible. The worst part was that the rollers in the printer that move the paper through the machine were coated with this stuff. The printer was basically ruined. I could never get it to print well after that. The guy I bought it from assured me it worked great when I bought it. He was another puzzle cutter that was upgrading to an even bigger printer, and I have no reason to doubt his word.
The moral of this story is to match your paper to your ink! I currently use Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl paper. It is designed to be compatible with all high-quality dye and pigment-based ink jet printers. The older paper I was using was Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl paper. It was designed only for dye-based ink jet printers. Pearl paper describes the surface style, which has less glare than a gloss paper.
So which is better? Dye or Pigment? That all depends. In general, for long term longevity of the print, a pigment-based ink is going to last longer. Dye inks (and their associated printers) are usually less expensive. Dye based inks dissolve more easily with a drop of water landing on the print. Pigment based inks are a little more robust. Dye based inks have a better color range than pigment-based inks. Dried dye-based inks are smoother, so they appear more vivid and vibrant.
Pick the ink that matches your printer is the best answer I have for you. Here is Epson’s blurb on their DURABrite brand ink which is used in my printer. This is taken from their technical brief which can be found at https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/sc80__/sc80__db.pdf. And, of course, their brand of pigment ink is better than conventional pigment ink!
Two more thoughts on the subject of ink. #1 – Do not buy it online. My experience (twice) is that if you do, they will ship you the oldest box they have, which might expire one month after you receive it. I go to a local store and paw through their boxes to find a “best before” date that is at least one year out. #2 – Pigment based inks can settle in the cartridge. Before you load the cartridges in your printer, shake them up. And, if your printer has been idle for a while, pull out the cartridges and shake them before printing.
Paper Delamination
This was really frustrating for me. In my beginning days cutting puzzles, I used old calendar pages and they worked great. I started printing images on my HP printer, and the printer paper would actually come apart in layers like a piece of filo dough or baklava. The picture below shows this problem. The mechanical object is the tip of a very fine (.5mm) mechanical pencil.
You can see the image is both splitting and lifting off of the plywood.
Modern inkjet photographic paper is a composite structure of at least four and up to six layers of material. You may often see it referred to as RC or resin coated paper. This graphic shows the layers.
Most papers are fine for what they were designed for: printing and displaying photos. However, when you start cutting the paper into weird little shapes, it does not hold up so well. The thick paper core can start to separate into multiple layers.
I went through many flavors of common brands of ink jet photo papers to find the best paper for my use. I tried big name brands and store brands. I even tried “adventure paper”, which is a waterproof paper for printing backpacking maps on. I will not name any brand as unacceptable, but I will say that I now specifically use Ilford Galerie Smooth Pearl paper. Ilford paper presents me with the least number of problems of all of them. I still have an occasional separation, but it is rare. This usually only happens with extreme points on the puzzle piece, such as the leaf tips on the oak leaf puzzles. I will use Epson paper as a backup. I can find Epson paper locally, but I have to buy Ilford paper via the internet.
I am sure other puzzle cutters have their favorite brands of paper. Nothing against those brands, but I am just telling what works best for me.
Paper Adhesion to Base Material
In the picture above that shows the paper splitting, you can also see the image is lifting off of the base plywood. In the case of this particular puzzle, the image was attached to the plywood with a spray glue. It could have been 3M Super 77, it could have been some other brand. The spray glues work and when they do, they work well. My personal experience for what I was using it for is that it is finicky. You have to have the timing just right. Too much, and you get a “bubble” that pops when you cut through it. The “bubble” spreads on the image and ruins it. Or, if you spray it too thin, it tends to lift when you cut it into weird shapes.
I upgraded to a dry mount press. This is a heavy device that heats objects pressed between the flat plates, and then there is a cam mechanism that delivers an impressive amount of pressure to bind items together under heat. A couple of pictures of mine are below.
This is not a slap dash solution to mounting images to the plywood. There is actually some thought and procedure to follow to get good results. After beating my head against the wall, I borrowed a book from the library. The title is “The Mounting and Laminating Handbook” and is written by Chris A. Paschke. Her book is written for people who mount and display art prints for a living. But, some of the information in her book is valid for mounting puzzle images to plywood. She has a section dedicated to use of the dry mount press with RC photo papers. The basics include using the correct temperature for the correct amount of time under the correct pressure while controlling the amount of moisture present. I am not going to attempt to regurgitate the many pages of the book here.
I started following her techniques and have very few problems with my images lifting anymore. When I do, it is usually because I tried to take short cuts while mounting an image. I ended up buying my own copy of the book to refer to.
However, this brings me to the current issue that brought me to finally write this blog post I planned to write years ago. I have a customer who sent me a large photographic print to cut into a puzzle. I noticed on the back of the print that it was printed on Kodak Ultra Premium Photo Paper. I cringed a little, as I was concerned about maybe having some of the paper separation issues discussed above. So far, I have not had any problems with that issue on this project.
BUT, and this is a big BUT, the image is lifting off of the base plywood. This is the worst case of this I have ever had. I followed all the best steps to get the adhesive to work with the dry mount process. I even brought the puzzle back to the press to “re-cook” it. No luck. I am cutting pieces out, and then sitting there with white glue and a skinny object to glue down the image to the cut pieces. It is extremely frustrating and time consuming.
As I sat here tonight typing this blog post, I was flipping through the book. I discovered this little tidbit at the bottom of page 120 of the third edition.
“A problem with smoother backed Kodak, Epson, and Xerox digital photos is bond failure when using standard methods as on these pages. Minutes to hours after removal from a hot vacuum or mechanical press, photos bubble or fall off the substrate. Suggested reasoning behind this bond failure is the need to smooth the photo backing so stacked images are not scratched….. The smoother backing may have resolved the scratching issue, but has created the new problem of bond failure. Sandpaper abrasion and alcohol cleaning might help the bond.” (Bold text is my emphasis.)
Sandpaper abrasion on the back of a digital print! Who’d have thunk it?!? Obviously, it would have to be very lightly done to avoid destroying the image.
Even when you think you have done everything right, sometimes something comes out of left field and smacks you across the face! It is too late for this project, but I wish I had known of this before. I mention above that I use Epson paper as a backup paper if I am out of Ilford. The Epson paper does not split, but I have noticed that it does not stay “stuck” to the plywood as well as the Ilford. This little nugget from Chris’ book confirms my anecdotal experience. When I bought the book from her, it was the 3rd edition (she sent a copy of the 2nd edition with it). The version I had borrowed from the library years ago was the 2nd edition and does not mention this particular issue. The 3rd edition was updated with new information concerning the mounting of digital images.
So there you go. My thoughts and experiences on dealing with ink jet photo paper for jigsaw puzzles.
It is possible to cut a lot of things into a jigsaw puzzle. This is an example of one from the fall of 2020. The customer contacted me and wanted something a little different. He bought a marquetry piece from an online store/auction and wanted it cut into a jigsaw puzzle. I asked some questions and decided the project was doable by me. The customer mailed it to me. This is what I received.
It was a beautiful piece. It did have some significant scratches in the surface. I used a drill with a cotton wheel and buffing compound to get rid of most of them. I almost felt guilty cutting it up once it was all polished. It did pose some challenges, however. For one thing, at 5/8″, it was a little thick. The second issue was that the brown and white triangle sides were tapered from 5/8″ to about 3/8″. To deal with them, I just cut them off! I use a straight piece of scrap wood when cutting edges to try and make them a straight line. You can see this in the below picture. I am not always successful at being straight, but it helps! You can also see this is at the beginning of the project, as the saw is nice and clean. The table is also gleaming, as I just polished it up with wax to make the wood slide easier.
Cutting the edges off revealed that the core material was made of solid lumber strips. It also revealed there were some gaps between the core and the design. You can see in the below picture that the core is sandwiched between two layers of some composite material, then there is the layer with the design, and then on top is a layer of epoxy or acrylic.
Next, I decided to sand about 1/4″ off the bottom to get to roughly 3/8″ thick. This revealed a couple of other issues. You can see a couple of knots and also some shaky looking glue lines. At this point, I was concerned the project was too weakened and perhaps not worth pursuing. The reason I use plywood in my puzzles is because the multiple cross layers provide good strength for the fragile puzzle pieces.
Corresponding with the customer, he wanted me to proceed with the project. It was an experiment for both of us, so push on through to see what happens. The photo below is a side view after I have made some piece cuts.
Somewhere in here, I had to deal with the failing glue lines and the knots. Some of the wood around the knots was lost. I was able to soak the glue lines with CA glue, which mostly worked. I did have some tips break off on some of the glue lines.
After that, it went remarkably well.
Final finished size was 10 3/4 x 10 3/4 with 308 pieces. That works out to about 2.6 pieces per square inch.
I had one piece break off while cutting the puzzle. The glue line was basically dissolved under a location where the inlay pieces met. It did break but was very easy to repair before shipping it to the customer. The repair was not even noticeable because it happened at a color change point.
I was very concerned of how it would stand up to shipping. The last time I went to my local post office, I could hear a computerized voice calling out numbers that sounded like a bingo game. One of the employees in the back was tossing packages in response to the voice into rolling bins from 15 to 20 feet away. If you think your packages are treated gently, think again. The puzzle did arrive with 15 pieces that broke off.
Customer was able to repair the damage himself and was overall very happy with the puzzle. In fact, he ended up sending me two additional marquetry projects later that year.
Interested in trying something different? Drop me an email, and we can discuss it. Although not a puzzle, I have cut sheet brass on the saw. I am not sure I am ready for a brass jigsaw puzzle, but who knows?
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I have not made an entry since 2016. When I created the blog, I made a mistake in allowing comments without some sort of a filter. The comments rolled in, and in, and in, and in. Tens of thousands of them. You do not want to know what some of them were suggesting! I had not realized the spam that blog authors can receive.
I ended up just ignoring the blog and the website. Puzzles I made were for sale on the Etsy site. My email contact information was available on this website for those that wanted a custom puzzle. It all worked for the few puzzles I was cutting.
Now, however, I want to update what is here and available! I want to leave some blog entries on the things I have done, and my experiences as I cut more puzzles.
That put me online with IT support from the hosting site for quite some time. Software was out of date and other issues exited as well. This is a test entry to see if I can make a new entry. If so, great! I hope to be able to make some useful updates over the next few weeks. If not, I guess I’ll be back with the IT people trying to get it working!
Cheers!
Bob
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The oak leaf puzzle is completed! It came to 180 pieces. That does not sound like a lot, but this is one tough puzzle! I assembled this one myself just to see how it went. The complex leaf outline combined with the consistent color makes it very challenging for its size.
Before I talk more about cutting this puzzle, I have to tell on myself. As I was reviewing photos for this blog entry, I had to laugh when I found this one. When I started this puzzle and realized I was going to have to do a little bit of gluing on the tips of the leaf, I looked and looked, but could not find my glue bottle. Up the house I went to get a different bottle of glue. So, I brought down the bottle of red labeled Titebond. Look at this picture. What do you see?
Glue bottles
Yep, right there on the blue shelf, about 24 inches from my nose, upside down so the glue is ready to come out of the spout, is the missing bottle of glue! I think I looked for 15 minutes for that thing! Oh, well. At least I know where it is now.
On my last entry, I had completed cutting 29 pieces. This weekend, I finished the bottom half of the puzzle, and then cut the top half into half again. Once again, this is to minimize handling damage while cutting the puzzle.
Top cut off
The middle piece kind of looks like a bat! I also cut the tips off of the bat wings before finishing up.
Bat wings tipped
I know I am making a big deal about minimizing handling damage, but here is a picture of what the concern is.
Fragile tip
You can see the very pointy tip of the leaf is looking a little fragile. Alternating layers of the plywood have broken away. On this piece, I had to re cut the leaf tip to fix this.
I finished cutting the puzzle on Saturday and sanded the back before bringing it up to the house. I could not resist and decided to assemble the picture myself. It is only 180 pieces and should only take an hour or so, right?!?
Here is the pile of pieces after counting.
Pile of pieces
Some assembly pictures:
Assembling – 3 hours in to it!
Assembling – 4.5 hours
Assembling – now with help of a picture!
At this point, in the interest of getting this assembled in a timely manner, I looked at the computer image to start lining things up! This is not an easy puzzle to assemble without the picture.
Starting to look like a leaf
Finished!
Backside of puzzle
You may have noticed there is not a frog piece. Instead, I signed and dated the stem.
This puzzle will be listed on my Etsy shop FiveFrogsWoodworking.
Here is the start of my latest project. I have been enjoying the fall colors. Our pin oak in the back yard had some beautiful color to it. I selected one of the leaves and scanned and printed it out on a 13″ x 19″ print. The scanner picks up some amazing detail.
Oak Leaf in Fall Colors
If you zoom in on the photo, you will notice the tips end in some very delicate whiskers. When you look at the cut puzzle, it does not have those! They would be too fragile. I just cut the leaf tips out to a point, and even those are proving to be a little problematic. Here is the leaf cut out of the background.
Cut out leaf
You will notice a couple of items. A color change and it is not as clear. The first picture was taken in the house under incandescent lighting using a Pentax SLR digital camera. I manipulated the photo a bit with Adobe Photoshop Elements for some clarity, but it is a much better picture and is closer to the true color. The second picture was taken down in the shop with my cell phone camera under fluorescent lighting. The picture is not nearly as clear and looks more purple. The next sets of pictures below were taken with the camera on my tablet in the shop under fluorescent lighting and are better than the cell phone pictures. All cameras are not the same.
Here is the puzzle cut in half. I cut it in half for a couple of reasons. One is that it is easier to handle as you are spinning the image around to make the cuts. The second is that it reduces the amount that the same piece of puzzle gets handled, which leads to less wear and tear on it.
Leaf Cut in Half
This is the same picture, but cropped and zoomed in on some of the tips of the leaf.
Tips of the leaf
You may notice that the whiskers are not there. You can also see how sharp of a point they come to. Those points are fragile and tend to be a problem point while cutting. I have to be sure and hold the puzzle by some of the straighter edges to prevent damaging the tips. In some cases, the print either lifts from the wood (rare now that I am using the dry mount press) or else the paper begins to de-laminate (this will be the topic of another post on another day). When that happens, I apply a small dab of white glue under the surface of the print, pinch it together, and wipe off the excess glue. I then place the piece on the work bench face down and put a weight on top of it for about 30 minutes to let it dry. The less often I have to do that, the better!
I started this project a couple of days ago, and have not gotten back to it. So far, there are 29 pieces cut. I expect this puzzle will have between 120 and 150 pieces when complete. It is hard to judge odd ball shapes like this one.
29 Pieces Cut So Far
In the background, you can see my bottle of glue. Right next to it are a couple of engineering squares that I am using for the weight while the glue dries. My stack of new blades is also sitting there. There is also a flip cell phone, but not the one I used to take pictures. It is odd, but my “good” cell phone does not get any reception in the shop. The cheap $5 flip phone in this picture gets great reception. So, it has become the shop phone.
I hope to get this puzzle done this week. I would like to get it listed on Etsy by the weekend. I have listed a few of my puzzles for sale on that website recently. I have also cut out another one of the eggplant flower puzzles that I need to get photographed and listed. The listings on Etsy are going up for a couple of weeks, but will come down in early November, as I will be unable to respond to sales. They will be listed again after the Thanksgiving holiday in time for Christmas shoppers.
Feel free to leave any comments and feedback in the boxes below about either my puzzles or my website. Also, be aware that many of the pictures above are thumbnails and can be clicked on for closer review.
When I started this blog a year or so ago, I stated that one of the things I would be writing about is the process I use and why I use it. This entry is to explain the method I use for mounting the prints to the backing material. It is obviously not the only way to do it, but it is the way I have found that works for me.
When I first started making puzzles for my grandmother, I used spray glue in a can. I have used several varieties and they all seem to work about the same. That means that if you follow the directions and the timing exactly to the letter, it mostly works. But, I found that if you wait too long after spraying to affix the image, the glue had lost some of its tackiness and I would have problems with the print peeling from the wood after it was cut.
I experimented with spraying both the back of the image and the plywood, but experienced some problems with excess glue pockets. Feeling frustrated, I decided to actually go to the library and maybe learn something from the knowledge of others. What a concept, right?!?
I found an excellent book that was more directed towards picture framers and art museums. It had a lot of great information that directly applied to me, and a bunch of useful background. Some concepts that stuck with me:
Surface preparation is key – the surface has to be smooth and void free
Moisture is bad – if you try to glue two impermeable surfaces together, there is no where for moisture to go. The print is basically plastic, so any moisture has to go in the other direction towards the wood. If the wood has a finish on it, there is nowhere for the moisture to go and you have problems
Ink jet prints can start to melt and the ink runs together if heated over about 220 degrees – high temperature processes will not work
Dry mount presses are relatively easy to work with. Vacuum presses are awesome, but expensive.
I found a used dry mount press at a reasonable price on eBay, ordered some different types of adhesives from B&H Photo, and have not looked back. I am still learning, but I am having almost zero instances of the print peeling up from the backing material. The only time I currently have an issue is if I have a very sharp “tip” on the puzzle piece, like the very pointed end of a leaf for example.
Surface Preparation – This all begins with the wood. In my case, I am using primarily 1/4″ Baltic Birch plywood. It has five plies of wood which makes it strong enough to withstand the jigsaw cutting. There are other woods available in other geographic locations, but I have not found them where I am located. Shipping for some of the exotics would be expensive, so I am so far sticking with the Baltic Birch. I do have some 9 ply 1/2″ plywood in maple, but it is harder to work with. The 1/2″ thick plywood certainly provides a different feel to the puzzle pieces.
The Baltic Birch comes in sheets that are 5 feet by 5 feet. I cut those down to size using a table saw. I make them a little oversize for my prints, which are either 8 1/2″ x 11″ or 13″ x 19″. Once I have them cut to size, I dedicate an afternoon to sanding. I use a random orbital sander and work my way up through 22o grit. The last time I did this, I cut up two sheets into 39 puzzle blanks. It took me over 4 hours to sand both sides of all 39 blanks and I used 15 sanding discs.
So now you have a blank and a printed image. What next?
I use a Seal dry mount press to glue the image to the plywood blank. This is a mechanical press that uses a cam lock mechanism to provide clamping pressure at the same time it heats whatever is being pressed in it. You need to heat it up enough to cause the adhesive to activate, but not so hot that it melts the ink jet print. As I mentioned earlier, ink jet inks can melt and run together if you heat them over about 225 degrees. I have not experienced this problem, but read about it in the afore mentioned book.
The “glue” is an adhesive that is available in rolls or sheets. I have two types of adhesive. One is Dry Lam Colortac Dry Mounting Tissue. It is a tissue paper like material that has adhesive impregnated in the tissue. I thought this was going to be my adhesive of choice, because the minimum required temperature is only 165 degrees. I used it on one puzzle, and had many problems with the print peeling up. I have used it to mount some prints to foam board for framing, and it works great. It just did not stand up to being cut in funny little shapes. I plan to attempt another puzzle using this material but at a higher temperature to see if it works better. In the meantime, I have been using a different product that works great.
That second product I have is Fusion 4000 Dry Mount Adhesive. This is a roll of a thin film that is 100% acid free. The entire film melts in the heating process and bonds as it cools. This product works great for me. The temperature range called for is 170 – 180 degrees, but I have actually used 190 degrees on the last couple of puzzles with no problems. On the other hand, who knows how accurate the temperature gauge is on the press? Next time I will try to remember to stick a temperature probe in the press to see if the gauge is close.
Here is a picture of the dry mount press.
Dry Mount Press (closed)
The press is closed in this picture. The grey handle in front is lifted up and the entire top of the press opens up for access. On the black bar on top are two knurled adjusting knobs. These are used to adjust the clamping pressure and/or to accommodate different thickness of material. The white rocker switch is the on/off switch. In the center of the grey area is the temperature gauge and the temperature adjustment knob. This press is fairly heavy. When you open it up, you can see it has two steel plates with foam pads that the “sandwich” of material gets pressed between.
The other tools needed are a cutting mat, a ruler, a razor, and a tacking iron.
Tacking iron
The tacking iron is just a small, hand-held iron that is used to tack the adhesive to the print to keep it aligned while loading the dry mount press. Mine is not actually an official picture mounting tacking iron. This one is used for applying tissue material to model airplanes. The major difference is that this one has a flat bottom iron. Picture framing irons have a rounded bottom to minimize the amount of contact. This one was about half the price and works just as well.
I start by warming up the press and the tacking iron. Once the press is warmed up, I place the bare piece of wood in the press to preheat it while I prepare the sheet of adhesive. I place the wood into a brown paper grocery bag to do this. The brown paper grocery bag absorbs any moisture that is driven out of the wood. I have discovered this step is crucial to ensure good adhesion to the plywood. If I do not preheat the wood, I have problems with peeling. This is another reason I need to retry the dry mount tissue, as I did not preheat the wood the one time I used it.
Roll of adhesive and cutting mat
Now you cut a piece of adhesive to size. I “borrowed” a quilter’s cutting mat from my wife. It works great because you can see the dimensions through the film when you are cutting.
Tacking adhesive to the print
Place the print face down on a flat surface. Align the sheet of adhesive to the print. Now use the tacking iron just on the corner of the stack. A proper tacking iron with a rounded bottom would probably actually work better, but this one works fine. The piece of white paper in my hand is a silicone release paper that goes between the tacking iron and the adhesive. If you did not use it, the adhesive would immediately ball up on the iron and you would have a real mess.
Print placed on the plywood
Next, take the preheated plywood out of the press and the paper bag (close the press to keep it warm!). Align the print and adhesive on top of the wood. The corner I just tacked is in the upper left.
Tacking adhesive to plywood
Carefully roll back the edge of the print and tack the bottom right corner of the adhesive to the plywood.
Loading the press
Load the press! Five pieces of material go in. On the bottom is a large piece of silicon release paper. Next is the plywood, adhesive, and print. On top goes a second large sheet of silicon release paper. Close the press and clamp it down. Watch the clock for four minutes and remove the mounted print.
Cooling under weight
Place it face down on a clean flat surface, and load it up with books. Leave it over night, and you are done! It is ready to go to the shop.
So there you have it! My process for mounting prints to plywood. I am sure there are many other methods in use, but this is what I have developed and works for me.
