Puzzlemaking.

Some time ago I stated I would try a puzzle pattern I found here.

It's pretty simple: just print, cut, paint, and enjoy. Well, it's not quite. I have never used a scroll saw before, and I'm not used to how it cuts and turns. Nor am I used to saw blades so thin that it's hard to see them. Nothing like practice to fix that, however.

Here you see pattern pasted on the wood, with some of the parts already cut off. I used 3/4 inch plywood because that's what I had laying around. Also, the piece should be able to stand on its own after it's cut out. I did this section with a wide, pinned saw blade that wasn't great at corners. It's hard to tell from this view but my cuts aren't really very precise. Not bad for first time, however.


Of course, cutting out the eyes and nostrils is a bit touchy. The technique is to drill a hole in the waste portions of the pattern, slide the blade through, and then cut. It doesn't take too long to catch the trick of that.

You can see here in the nostrils the initial drill holes, which are 1/32 inch wide. I used a non-pinned blade that fits tightly but nicely. In the eye you can see I've already cut out a bit to give the blade some room to work. The 90 degree cuts for the teeth were a little tricky, and probably should have been made with a spiral blade (see picture), but the thin blade appears to have worked out well.


Here is the exploded version of the puzzle, then the entire puzzle assembled and standing up:


















The next step is to pull off the paper, sand, and paint. I may even get creative and try to carve some bits out of the wood, just as highlights. But that remains to be seen. I have found it devilishly hard to find time to work on this. So many distractions. At some point I'm going to learn to say "no" when people ask me to do things.