Origins
This all started during the pandemic, so I guess there's a silver lining. We were practicing living at a distance, which meant spending an unprecedented amount of time at home and looking for activities that we could do together to stay busy and engaged with one another. We fell back upon some of the tried and true methods of our youth; playing cards, board games, dominos, and puzzles. I purchased a laser-cut, wooden puzzle from Artifact Puzzles that June for my wife's birthday. It depicted "Our Gentle Giant" by artist Kevin Sloan and with whimsies, an irregular boarder, and 326 pieces, I knew it would be a hit for an elephant lover. Who would have thought that small gift would put us onto the path that we are on now - making our own laser-cut puzzles, and a whole lot more.
The puzzle was beautiful, and is still one of my favorites today. I remember when it arrived and watching my wife work through the rituals of its assembly, methodically laying out the pieces by color and looking for edges in the classical way, knowing that it would only get her a quarter of the way there with its irregular border. I examined the puzzle, the small wooden pieces, their sepia coloring, the slight camp-fire smell, and the satin sheen of the print and I remember thinking - wow, this is eloquent yet so simple, I wonder how they do this? Little did I know how difficult it would be to accomplish something that was seemingly so elementary.
Over the next two years I would go on a scavenger hunt, searching for articles, posts, forums, videos, and communities on various aspects of laser-cut puzzle making as an art. Asking questions like where does one start? How does one cut a puzzle? What are the elements of a good cut? What are the different types of puzzles? What are they made of? Where does a cottage puzzle maker acquire materials? and many, many more. With each search I would discover something new, sometimes feeling a bit disappointed that there were no obvious answers, and sometimes uncovering something that would lead to a revelation and a new experiment to attempt, and there have been many experiments since then with still many more to come.
So that's what this series of blog articles will cover; my journey in the art of laser-cut puzzle making, and believe me, there's definitely an art to it.
Lasers
Behold, the mighty K40! cough, cough... K40 is a generic term for a relatively inexpensive, gantry-based, carbon dioxide laser (CO2). CO2 lasers are great at engraving and cutting all kinds of materials; rubber, wood, acrylic, leather, and more, and at the time I was wary of a number of things, with cost, size, and operational complexity at the top of my list. I really had no idea what I was getting into, I often leap before I look, but I had joined a few subreddits on lasers (r/K40laser, r/lasercutting, r/Laserengraving), had read a few posts here and there and had decided that I could afford the $350 that my first K40 laser would cost me. Searching for the best deal I could find, I purchased one on eBay and while it would come from a North American distributor, the K40 was decidedly Chinese in origin, as most are.
K40s get their name from their 40 Watt CO2 tube and while there's no formal specification for them, they all follow the same general design. They're small enough to fit on a moderate sized desktop or workbench, and they require space and methods for exhausting fumes, cooling the laser tube, and a highly recommended addition of an air-assist. I'll get into the details of my K40 in another article, but needless to say, the $350 price point didn't last long. Out of necessity, I added and upgraded many components, including swapping out the M2 Nano laser controller board with a Cohesion3D LaserBoard in order to get software control of the output power and better results for things I was making.
My first laser - The "Mystery Machine"
Generally speaking, K40s are no frills and are about as simple as a CO2 laser gets. This one had a 200 x 300mm bed, (that's ~8" x 12" for you USA folks). On the right, you'll see an analog ampere meter or "ammeter" to measure current, a potentiometer (grey knob) to control the current in milliamps (mA), a laser switch button to turn the laser on/off, a laser test switch (pulse), and a master on/off switch governing both the controller and laser power. Present but out of picture are the CO2/nitrogen filled tube under the white panel in the back, the power supply under the control panel on the right, and an exhaust fan out of site in the rear. That's basically it. There are a few more components inside the box, a few of which you can see; mirrors, stepper motors, and the gantry (the rails upon which the laser head moves). It's a very simple machine on paper. On paper.
My first article isn't all about lasers though, so for brevity the TL;DR on lasers is - buy the best quality laser that you can afford at the time. Focus on moderate wattage and value added features over bed size and raw power. Bigger isn't always better, and for puzzles you don't need 24 x 40" of workspace. A mid-range 60-80W machine with a 20 x 24" bed will work great. I'll take a laser that can recover from power off due to a flipped breaker over a bigger bed any day of the week. Lower wattages and smaller beds are fine too, they'll just be slower to cut and your puzzles won't be as big. In the laser world, a bigger laser (higher wattage) can actually make fine cuts and engraving more difficult. Refinement and precision are the keys to making the great laser-cut puzzle products. We'll talk more about that later on too.
A final note on K40s. Generic K40s are temperamental beasts, and if you own or have owned one you know that each has its own personality, complete with strengths and quirks... oh so many quirks. If you have patience, are a tinkerer, and willing to deal with another toddler in your household, a generic K40 is a great place to start. If that's not you though, I would not recommend one. You might ask what about a Glowforge? IMHO, Glowforge is the pinnacle of the 40 Watt laser world and if you're looking for an easy button, a Glowforge is probably it. I however have never owned one. Glowforge has a hefty premium given available options for the same money, and is not without what some laser makers consider as serious restrictions. Enough about lasers for now.
Puzzles
Looking at that little K40, you might not think that much good would come from it. Given that there's a clamp built into the bed, it's actually marketed to make custom rubber stamps for small businesses and scrapbooking. Yep, that's right. Take a piece of rubber and an inverted image designed to produce a stamp, and you can use the K40 to ablate the rubber material and leave behind the desired negative. I doubt that most K40s are used that way, but it's how it's sold. There's a small metal plate that can be fastened to the bed to cover up that big hole where the clamp is located and that's how I operated my K40 for about a year. Many people just remove that bed altogether and replace it with a honeycomb bed for cleaner cutting, however I never got around to that, but instead developed several tricks to keep my pieces clean while cutting on a flat surface.
But what can it do after all? Well, I was thumbing back through my photos to see what I was able to make back then. I was making all the things that people new to laser craft start out with, coasters, Christmas ornaments, night lights, and more. Given that I had designs on eventually making puzzles, I naturally had to take a stab at that as well.
Puzzle Variety
Given their history, there are a wide variety of puzzles out there, developed over hundreds and thousands of years. As with any hobby a history begets historians, and modern puzzle making is no different. There are a few well known individuals who have served as puzzle historians, capturing images, assigning labels and categories, publishing articles and books. One such individual is Bob Armstrong who published an article some time ago on puzzle classification. It's a bit dated now, but still quite relevant, especially amidst the current puzzle renaissance. There are a number of terms that Bob establishes that I will try to adhere to when I can, e.g. the use of "knob" to describe an outward piece of a puzzle that connects to an inward slot on another piece. I'll also describe some things using terms that I think of from time to time, as seems to be an accepted practice in the puzzle community. Acceptance of variance in terminology to describe the same things appeals to me. It reminds me of quest to decode the Mayan Language and discovery that different regional symbols were in fact localizations of the same concepts as depicted by the artist handling the chisel. I like that.
Tessellations and Tilings
One great place to start in puzzle making is with tessellations and tilings. Tessellations have been around for millennia, with recorded tessellations dating back as far as 4000 BCE. My guess is that tilings are as old as humanity. If you've ever admired the modern works of M.C. Escher, the artwork of Robert Fathauer, spent time doodling repetitive geometric shapes, or have ever played a game of chess or checkers (the game board!) you're familiar with tessellations.
There are a number of resources out there that can teach you to make them, but if you're just wanting to dive right in, then you can find several that are a great place to start in fine-tuning your laser engraving and cutting skills while making a fun piece to share with friends and family.
Consider checking out this one from thingiverse created by Julien Dubuisson.
Sliders
My first puzzle was what I call a "slider". Bob Armstrong would describe this as a non-interlocking or "push-fit" puzzle. The distinction I make is that this puzzle has an outer-frame that serves to eventually lock all of the pieces together. Each piece still fits into a distinct location, but individual pieces don't interlock via a conventional knobs, rather each has knobs that serve to key the puzzle piece into its proper place.
When I design and eventually cut a puzzle, I typically go through a few different phases and series of iterations within each phase. There are often many test cuts along the way as well as an image selection process to marry up with a cut. Expect to spend time - and materials - along the way. Think of it like the studies and behind the scenes material that you've seen from artists and musicians. They're integral to the learning process and despite what people may think about lasers, you cannot just buy one, turn it on, and expect to be turning out pieces in no time. There is a lot to learn about a laser to have it cut cleanly and consistently, not to mention upkeep and maintenance. If you want to see a few lasers gone wrong, just join a few Facebook groups that focus upon laser cutting and engraving. You are going to need to spend time and money in the process of learning how to make a puzzle, or anything on the laser really. Think of practice materials as sunk cost and an investment in the future.
As an aside, you may have noticed in that picture above that the entire puzzle is covered with a translucent white sheet. That's called masking. Masking is one of the many ways to accomplish a clean cut when laser cutting (especially on a K40) by covering a piece with transfer tape. The advantage of masking is that it protects a piece from the smoke, soot, and the sticky, staining resins and other substances that are produced during the lasing process. The disadvantages of masking are that it takes time and energy to mask and then unmask a product (a.k.a. weeding to you vinal cutters). Eventually I started masking my pieces to help make them cleaner, but as pieces became more complex and I needed higher fidelity cuts and engraving it became impractical and unnecessary to mask them. Trust me when I say that too much time is required to unmask a 100 piece puzzle, not to mention a 400+ piece one.
You might also wonder how I design the puzzles and then manage to cut the puzzles on a laser. There are different pieces of software needed for each. Originally I started learning on Inkscape and K40 Whisperer which are both free and eventually graduated to Lightburn, Corel, Adobe, and a few other products. We'll get deeper into those in later posts. For now however, in my humble opinion the singular, most important piece of software you can own is Lightburn. Do yourself a favor and invest in Lightburn early.
Conventional
Most of us are familiar with conventionally cut puzzles. They're typically row/grid-cut with 0-4 knobs per piece and adorned with a wide variety of images meant to have mass appeal. Large-scale puzzle manufacturers like Buffalo Games and Puzzles produce up to 2 million puzzles a month in this classic form. Those familiar shapes have made a pastime of solving puzzles a reality for most families over the holidays and throughout the year.
Today, thanks to craft puzzle makers and lasers, a family photo can be transformed into a bespoke heirloom piece that's passed down through the generations. We'll also dive into the details of how to create one of these pieces
There are a whole host of tools and free software available to generate conventional puzzles for laser cutting. One of the easiest to use is available on github here thanks to Manuel Kasten. You can tweak the puzzle parameters to your heart's content, download the result as an scalable vector graphic (SVG), and import it into your laser cutting software, design software or both, depending on your needs.
Unconventional
Unconventional cuts are all the rage these days with a wide variety of options available from artisan puzzle makers, both jigsaw and laser-cut alike. These puzzles introduce cuts and pieces that interlock in novel ways to support the introduction of whimsies, fanciful patterns, and in some cases even multiple, alternative puzzle solutions. The pattern and pieces in these cuts have often been designed along side the puzzle imagery to support a common motif - a puzzle with dragons might have dragons, damsels, knights, castles, swords, shields and more as pieces.
Now, as an artist I'm a mere novice but I do have the good fortune of having a 30 year career in software development. Not only do I grok and love bit twiddling, but I also have a keen interest in generative art and algorithms. That has led me down yet another path with puzzle making. Not only have I had the good fortune to learn about lasers and their supporting software and peripherals, but I've also had an opportunity to flex my software muscle to generate both artwork and cuts, learning just a few things along the way - with oh so much more to go. It's been the perfect blend of art, science, engineering and crafting and I'm looking forward to more.
Artisans
In this post I also wanted to cover something that I think about from time to time - the differences between jigsaw and laser-cut puzzles.
A jigsaw puzzle is literally that - a puzzle designed for and ultimately cut upon a jigsaw. My puzzles are not that, they are designed for and cut upon a laser. I want to call out the distinction and address something that percolates in the back of my mind regarding the difference.
Both are legitimate forms of puzzle crafting. I have the utmost respect for anyone who can cut a jigsaw puzzle. I can only imagine the concentration and skill that it takes to hand-craft a jigsaw puzzle with tens if not hundreds of pieces, not to mention time invested to develop knowledge of the nuances, required planning, and the years of practice to develop the expertise. It's impressive and I understand why hand-cut puzzles fetch such admiration and high prices. It's well deserved.
Similarly, having made laser-cut puzzles for a couple of years now, I know that there is much more to laser craft and the production a laser cut puzzle than most people realize. Admittedly I didn't understand that before getting into the hobby and was quite dismissive of anything that was laser cut and engraved prior to owning a laser. Having walked a few miles in those shoes however, I know how difficult it is to produce something that's high quality on a laser, something I myself would be proud to own. There are so many details to think about and nuances to contend with when making a puzzle; anything on a laser really, ranging from materials and their flaws, to consistency in cutting, to quite literally avoiding burning down your workshop (it happens). I'll look to walk the audience through all of that over time.
All that to say that equal respect is due where time has been invested and if you enjoy what you're doing, then that itself is enough. That's plenty for a first post. I'm hoping that you've found some of this informational and am looking forward to more posts.
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