This is a spectacular puzzle with super cool cutting.

As it happened (from my Journal archives)

October 10, 2008

Friday 6:28 pm - I was at the shop for several hours today. The glue for the stand for Six Piece Golden Ratio Compulsory #1 was fully dried today, the stand looks excellent. I spent some time cutting #805, Creative Art with Four Tricky Eggs - finally! I completed the initial subdivision of the board, always a harrowing process with bigger Creative style puzzles; went well. I did not get to cutting any individual pieces.

October 12, 2008

Sunday 5:26 pm - I was at the shop for about three hours today, less than I had planned. Much cooler weather since that short record heat wave. I did more board subdivision work on #805, started and completed the highly irregular border, and just three pieces along the way (one tricky Egg and two other pieces). I'm now going to skip the planned embedded days off between now and the completion of #811, I need to get going! I expect much more progress on #805 tomorrow.

October 13, 2008

Monday 9:28 pm - At the shop about six hours, with more than half of the time working on #805, finally making a dent. The puzzle is about 25% completed, looking good, cutting continues tomorrow. There will be less interruptions as I don't have a performance practice nor any classes

October 14, 2008

Tuesday 8:06 pm - Puzzle marathon cranking up - rather long day at the shop today, did little else today except cut and cut, I'm now at the 70-75% mark with the cutting of #805, Creative Art with Four Tricky Eggs. Cutting continues to go well, some very nice sections of cutting in this Creative style puzzle. The wood is holding up well, given the dry Santa Ana conditions which continued today.

Tomorrow, cutting continues. I plan to complete the puzzle, sand, inspect, and apply two coats of tung oil on each side. I'll give the puzzle a full day to thoroughly dry; I'm expecting to ship the puzzle on Friday. I'm going to continue working on puzzles until #811 is done, before taking a break.

It would be cool to have a public "which way will John turn the wood?" event. I'd start cutting a small subsection, filmed live, and the audience could try to guess how I'm going to subdivide the section in an elegant Creative style method.

October 15, 2008

Wednesday 5:35 pm - I finished cutting #805, after another pretty long day of work. Hot again. For some reason or other, I had a few very tiny "chipouts" in the final quadrant while just one in the first three quadrants. After I finished cutting, using dental tools and magnification, I was able make excellent repairs to all of the "chipouts" as I had managed to locate and keep each tiny chipout chip ..... very, very painstaking repair work. The puzzle is awesome and I'm sure the customer will be very happy with it. Because of the need to do the repairs I did not get around to sanding it. Tomorrow morning I'll sand and oil the puzzle. Shipment still scheduled for Friday. I'll post a picture of the puzzle after the customer has assembled it.

Tomorrow I'll mount #806 through #812, with cutting expect to begin on Friday after I ship #805.

October 16, 2008

Thursday 9:18 pm - Puzzle #805, Creative Art with Four Tricky Eggs is currently at the shop, sanded, cleaned, and coated with two coats of tung oil. Tomorrow I'll take the official pictures, take it apart, carefully package it and ship it. I still haven't mounted the images for the next puzzles due an afternoon nap and then a marathon performance practice for the upcoming showcase on Saturday October 25th. I'll be mounting #806 through #811 shortly, everything is set for the mounts. I'm now running two days behind schedule for the upcoming Puzzle Parley; I'll start cutting #806 tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday 11:28 pm - Puzzles #806 through #811 are now mounted. I forgot to mention that I didn't get around to taking pictures for today's puzzle cutting question, the question will be posted tomorrow.

October 17. 2008

Friday 6:52 pm -

October 18, 2008

Saturday 6:20 pm -