How to Cut a Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle

Homemade wooden jigsaw puzzles provide hours of family fun.

Jigsaw puzzles are fun. Often these simple puzzles provide hours of shared family time. Wooden jigsaw puzzles are a luxury. One of the problems with cardboard jigsaw puzzles is that the interlocking ends of the pieces can bend or tear. With wood, the puzzle pieces can last for years. A wooden puzzle also offers the opportunity to personalize a puzzle with a print of favored art or photographs. When you make your puzzles yourself, you will have one-of-a-kind puzzles that will last for generations of family fun.

Things You'll Need

• 1/4-inch 5-ply mahogany, bass or birch
• Image (medium-weight paper)
• Orbital sander
• Dry mount
• Variable speed scroll saw
• .009 to .020 saw blades
• Rubber cement
• Jigsaw pattern

Instructions

1. Select a print or image that is of good print quality, meaning that if a water drop touches the paper the ink will not smear. You cannot use ink-jet prints. The print should be on medium-thick paper. Magazine images are printed on paper that is too thin. Prints that are too thick may fray along the edges of the jigsaw pieces.

2. Cut your 5-ply, 1/4-inch-thick plywood to the size of the image. Select a wood, such as mahogany, bass or birch for your puzzles as these woods will cut cleanly and hold up well over time.

3. Sand your plywood with an orbital sander so that it is very smooth.

4. Take your ply and your image to a local frame shop and have them dry-mount the image directly onto the board. This is a heat-adhesive system that will mount your image to your board perfectly flat, and you will have none of the issues that using wet glue can cause.

5. Select a jigsaw pattern for your puzzle. Search online or through library resources for jigsaw patterns. You can also draw your own patterns. Keep in mind that cutting tiny shapes with a saw is difficult, so your pattern should be larger and less intricate than some commercial puzzle patterns.

6. Glue your pattern to the top of your puzzle image using rubber cement. Test the rubber cement on a scrap piece of image to make sure that it can be rubbed off without leaving a trace when you are done cutting.

7. Cut your jigsaw pattern using a very fine scroll blade. Keep in mind that blades as small as .009 to .020 can be used with a variable-speed scroll saw. The thin blades produce very thin cut lines. These blades will also break every 15 minutes or so under proper use.

8. Sand the sides of your finished pieces.

Tips & Warnings

• Art can be painted directly onto the board or one side can be a dry-mounted image, and the other side can be painted. This will give you two puzzles in one.

References

• New Puzzles: How to Make a Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle