Aggrajag
Established Member
Hi all,
I finished my latest project on Saturday and as it took so long I had taken a few pictures over the weeks so that I could show them to any poor sod at work who showed the slightest interest! (It took so long because I'm lucky to get 4 hours a week in my den and this took a whopping 17 including the photo editing.)
I decided to make my sister and her fiance a jigsaw using a variation of the tutorials I saw online at forum.scrollsawer.com. I'd seen the ideal picture for it on their Facebook pages so after asking for a better quality version of it (higher resolution) and without giving any details away for their surprise present, I started with the following image. Note that I've edited out their faces purely for privacy.
From the tutorials I'd seen that the gap between my sister's arm and her body would be a bit silly, so I fattened up her coat, and that the flagpoles would require very thin pieces on a higher layer so I decided to remove them completely.
I also decided to add some "Easter Eggs" in there - little surprises for them to discover whilst assembling it. A love heart for the happy couple and Freddie Mercury stood on the rocks - i was always totally obsessed with Queen as a teenager/young adult, so I thought it apt for me. I also decided to add "Shrek Ears" to Christian when I was cutting the lugs for that particular piece but they aren't on this template. Note that the Easter Eggs were printed separately and then blu-tacked onto the picture when necessary to be cut around and then simply thrown away.
In a change to the tutorials I'd seen, in which I didn't like the idea of removing the image from a layer and re-gluing it on the correct layer I decided to cheat by creating 4 complete layers. To do this I printed out the image 4 times and using 3M DisplayMount Adhesive I glued each of these onto a piece of 6.4mm Birch Plywood. Once this had dried overnight (excessive time to be completely sure) I then sprayed each piece with lacquer (can't find it to give name!) to form a protective layer. I did this in the garden with some wind and I did apply too much. It says multiple thinner layers are better but I was heavy handed in my enthusiasm and also using it for the first time. Unfortunately each layer did have runs on it but thankfully, after some jiggery-pokery, I could see that each dribble was in an area that I could cover with another layer.
It was after this point that I noticed I'd glued all 4 layers into a corner using the top-left of the picture as the origin - this meant there was no spare wood on the left-hand side or at the top. In my head I'd wanted to cut the picture from the bottom (foreground) upwards but it transpired that I'd yet again made a lucky error.
I aligned the 4 layers carefully and screwed them together with 4 screws below the foreground/bottom of the image. I then started to cut off the excess on the right-hand side of the picture and was amazed at the sheer weight of the assemblage. My heart sank, this was going to be hard work. However! I realised that if I cut the jigsaw across the middle, adding lugs as necessary, I could remove the entire sky half of the picture and work on that as a single layer and then when I got to the 2/3/4 layer sections then I would already have lost half of the weight.
Having already practised on a small 4-layer mock-up I opted to use a #3 modified geometry blade from Olson. It certainly was slow but the cut was perfect top and bottom and the kerf was ideal for the jigsaw - not leaving too much gap and therefore a wobbly puzzle.
Here you can see it after the first cut and the removal of the unnecessary 3 layers from the top half of the picture. Note that, following the tutorial guidelines, all lugs go from high-layer to low-layer and not vice versa.
I then cut the top layer as a stand-alone single-layer jigsaw, which as my first ever jigsaw, went pretty well. Unfortuantely I didn't take any pictures at this stage, so here's the next stage where I've worked on layers 2 and 3 on the right-hand side. You might notice I had forgotten to remove one of the lugs between layers 2 and 1, which was a pain as I'd already glued them together when I noticed. (I removed it microscopically on my router table at a later date, mm by mm until the lower picture was visible.)
Before gluing I would use a small paintbrush to remove any sawdust and for the gluing I used Gorilla glue and a toothpick, to minimise excess, carefully aligning each piece together, applying a small amount of pressure, re-adjusting as necessary and then simply putting it down to dry. The glue worked fantastically well and created bond on the lacquer almost instantly, I was very pleased considering that this had been a worry from the offset.
After gluing and leaving a short while to dry, I would file any chips and flakes as necessary and on a couple of occasions I even had to alter the geometry of the piece where I'd pushed too hard and made a non-vertical cut which hindered assembly of the jigsaw. Ironically once I got to layer 4 this never happened as I'd got much more competent at cutting the jigsaw.
Here I've completed layers 2 and 3.
Finally here's the cut, but not glued, layer 4 in it's entirety. You will also note that here I've removed a few fiddly layer-3 pieces from the 4-layer pieces at the bottom.
I finished my latest project on Saturday and as it took so long I had taken a few pictures over the weeks so that I could show them to any poor sod at work who showed the slightest interest! (It took so long because I'm lucky to get 4 hours a week in my den and this took a whopping 17 including the photo editing.)
I decided to make my sister and her fiance a jigsaw using a variation of the tutorials I saw online at forum.scrollsawer.com. I'd seen the ideal picture for it on their Facebook pages so after asking for a better quality version of it (higher resolution) and without giving any details away for their surprise present, I started with the following image. Note that I've edited out their faces purely for privacy.
From the tutorials I'd seen that the gap between my sister's arm and her body would be a bit silly, so I fattened up her coat, and that the flagpoles would require very thin pieces on a higher layer so I decided to remove them completely.
I also decided to add some "Easter Eggs" in there - little surprises for them to discover whilst assembling it. A love heart for the happy couple and Freddie Mercury stood on the rocks - i was always totally obsessed with Queen as a teenager/young adult, so I thought it apt for me. I also decided to add "Shrek Ears" to Christian when I was cutting the lugs for that particular piece but they aren't on this template. Note that the Easter Eggs were printed separately and then blu-tacked onto the picture when necessary to be cut around and then simply thrown away.
In a change to the tutorials I'd seen, in which I didn't like the idea of removing the image from a layer and re-gluing it on the correct layer I decided to cheat by creating 4 complete layers. To do this I printed out the image 4 times and using 3M DisplayMount Adhesive I glued each of these onto a piece of 6.4mm Birch Plywood. Once this had dried overnight (excessive time to be completely sure) I then sprayed each piece with lacquer (can't find it to give name!) to form a protective layer. I did this in the garden with some wind and I did apply too much. It says multiple thinner layers are better but I was heavy handed in my enthusiasm and also using it for the first time. Unfortunately each layer did have runs on it but thankfully, after some jiggery-pokery, I could see that each dribble was in an area that I could cover with another layer.
It was after this point that I noticed I'd glued all 4 layers into a corner using the top-left of the picture as the origin - this meant there was no spare wood on the left-hand side or at the top. In my head I'd wanted to cut the picture from the bottom (foreground) upwards but it transpired that I'd yet again made a lucky error.
I aligned the 4 layers carefully and screwed them together with 4 screws below the foreground/bottom of the image. I then started to cut off the excess on the right-hand side of the picture and was amazed at the sheer weight of the assemblage. My heart sank, this was going to be hard work. However! I realised that if I cut the jigsaw across the middle, adding lugs as necessary, I could remove the entire sky half of the picture and work on that as a single layer and then when I got to the 2/3/4 layer sections then I would already have lost half of the weight.
Having already practised on a small 4-layer mock-up I opted to use a #3 modified geometry blade from Olson. It certainly was slow but the cut was perfect top and bottom and the kerf was ideal for the jigsaw - not leaving too much gap and therefore a wobbly puzzle.
Here you can see it after the first cut and the removal of the unnecessary 3 layers from the top half of the picture. Note that, following the tutorial guidelines, all lugs go from high-layer to low-layer and not vice versa.
I then cut the top layer as a stand-alone single-layer jigsaw, which as my first ever jigsaw, went pretty well. Unfortuantely I didn't take any pictures at this stage, so here's the next stage where I've worked on layers 2 and 3 on the right-hand side. You might notice I had forgotten to remove one of the lugs between layers 2 and 1, which was a pain as I'd already glued them together when I noticed. (I removed it microscopically on my router table at a later date, mm by mm until the lower picture was visible.)
Before gluing I would use a small paintbrush to remove any sawdust and for the gluing I used Gorilla glue and a toothpick, to minimise excess, carefully aligning each piece together, applying a small amount of pressure, re-adjusting as necessary and then simply putting it down to dry. The glue worked fantastically well and created bond on the lacquer almost instantly, I was very pleased considering that this had been a worry from the offset.
After gluing and leaving a short while to dry, I would file any chips and flakes as necessary and on a couple of occasions I even had to alter the geometry of the piece where I'd pushed too hard and made a non-vertical cut which hindered assembly of the jigsaw. Ironically once I got to layer 4 this never happened as I'd got much more competent at cutting the jigsaw.
Here I've completed layers 2 and 3.
Finally here's the cut, but not glued, layer 4 in it's entirety. You will also note that here I've removed a few fiddly layer-3 pieces from the 4-layer pieces at the bottom.
