I started cutting puzzles around 2010/2011 when my wife Eileen and I moved to North Carolina USA. I purchased a scroll saw from a discount import store "Harbor Freight" for less than $50 after applying coupons. My first two puzzles were very simple push fit puzzles based on advertising images produced for British Railways. I gradually attempted more complex (for me anyway) puzzles in a semi interlocking style. I often cut wavy edge pieces which I claimed were to add to the difficulty of assembly but was more to do with my lack of skill at that time to cut a good straight edge. The scroll saw offered limitations ultimately in that it used only pinned blades so much finer blades which allowed more detailed cutting were not available to me. One evening about 10 months into my hobby a friend knocked my door with the offer of a free Delta scroll saw which he ha removed from his sister's barn. It was a little rusty but had the ability to take pinless blades which could be changed quite rapidly since the saw was fitted with quick release clamps. I made a table for the saw and was then able to progress to using some very fine blades made especially for jigsaw puzzle cutting. What a joy ! I was no longer having to cut a wide swathe through the plywood for my pieces and the result was smaller, more intricate and cleaner pieces.

The first time a blade breaks is never forgotten. The sound is far worse than the event but it certainly stops you in your tracks. This scroll saw was responsible for a good many of my early puzzles up to around 2013 (see videos for three of them). I did have to make a modification subsequently because the aperture through which the blade passed was large and when cutting some of the smaller puzzle pieces there was a possibility of a piece falling through the aperture and getting lost in a pile of sawdust. To overcome the problem the aperture plate was replaced with a piece of acrylic with a hole just a little larger than the blade.

I then began to cut puzzles for all and everyone who would like one. The cutting was very crude, although I suspect at the time I was very proud of them. The puzzle illustrated was a calendar page from the photographs of Ansel Adams. This example is titled “Mirror Lake, Mount Watkins, Spring, Yosemite National Park, California, 1935”