FIVE FROGS WOODWORKING

A customer asked for a custom puzzle, but it is not a standard sized puzzle.  The image is in the public domain and is available on Wiki Media Commons.  The artist is Kano Eino and he lived in the last half of the 17th century.  The original piece is roughly 60″ tall and 142″ wide.  It was painted on six panels that are connected together.  When you translate those dimensions to standard printer paper sizes, it would be a oddball sized puzzle.  For example, on an 8 x 10, it would only be 4.2″ tall.  On a 13 x 19 print, it would be 8″ tall and 19″ wide.

So, my challenge is to print it on two sheets of paper and merge the two pieces together in the puzzle cutting process.  I decided to print it on 2 sheets of 13 x 19 paper, with a goal of a finished puzzle being roughly 13″ tall and 30″ wide.  The left three panels would be on one image, and the right three panels would be on a second image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I printed the pictures, I added “truth marks” where I wanted the images to be joined.  These are to help me position the images when I double stack cut them to ensure perfect alignment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I first cut my two mounted images into two pieces to make them more manageable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I next made cutouts in the piece that was to be placed on top.  The cutouts were to allow me to see my “truth marks” to align the pieces for cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stacked the two pieces, looking at 6 locations for perfect alignment:  the two truth marks and the four corners:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now it is time to carefully glue the edges with a hot melt glue gun while maintaining the 6 alignment points in exact position:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The point we have been building up to:  cutting the double stack to merge the two images together:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once the assembly is cut in two pieces, it is time to trim all the edges and get rid of the glue and excess borders.  I like to use a straight piece of scrap wood as a guide when cutting straight lines.  Cutting straight lines freehand can be a little difficult.  It leads to wavy edges instead of straight edges.

 

Now we have one large puzzle, ready for cutting!

Using the truth marks and the four corners made for perfect alignment of the merged images!  Unfortunately, my Epson printer did not manage to maintain a perfect color match from image to image.  These photos show a little bit of color variation.  The pictures make the variation look worse than it actually is.  I did not even initially notice it, but my daughter pointed it out to me.  Must be a difference in the age of our eyes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An added bonus is that the two pieces of waste material also fit together, and can be used to make a smaller puzzle!

 

The final size of the combined images after trimming is 27 3/4″ wide by 12 1/4″ tall.  The goal is to have about 650 pieces.

I will post more on this puzzle as I move forward.  I need to contact the customer about the color shade variation.

 

I had my first international sale today!  Until now, I had limited sales to U.S. addresses only.  I was not ready to tackle the shipping process.  It turned out not to be all that bad.  You can accomplish most of it on-line.

The U.S. Post Office has a decent website that is mostly self explanatory.  If you want to pay on-line and print your own shipping label, you need to sign up for an account.  Once you have an account and are signed in, you walk step by step through the process.

1. Select a destination
2. Declare an item value
3. Pick a mailing date
4. Select a package type – USPS provided or self provided
5. Enter the package weight
6.  Enter a shipping option – anything priority is pretty pricey!
7. Complete a customs form and print it
   • You do need to read the long list of things you cannot ship.  It is a composite list of things that the U.S. government does not allow to be shipped out of country, and things the recipient’s country does not allow in.
8. Pay for the shipping and print your label
9. Attach the label
10. Take the package, the customs form, and the bar code sheet that prints out the post office
11. They scan the bar code, review the customs form and attach it to the package, and you are done!

I found it interesting that by doing this on line, you save a couple of bucks.  My package was 2 pounds even.  The “list price” for shipping to Great Britain was $25.75.  The on-line cost was $23.18.  And, I was able to pay with PayPal.  The customer had paid for the puzzle and shipping via PayPal and I was able to transfer some of that money directly from the PayPal account to the post office.

Pretty easy process overall.