NEW HAND CUT WOODEN JIGSAW PUZZLE #50, 101 pieces "Santas Flight Plan" Cut By The Puzzle Junkie Start Price USD 30.00 Current Price USD 53.52 Time Left - Bid Count 3 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Sunday, November 16, 2008 End Time Sunday, November 23, 2008 Location Oviedo, Florida See more about 'NEW HAND CUT WOODEN JIGSAW PUZZLE #50, 101 pieces' Description #50  “Santa’s Flight Plan”, 4½” x 6 3/8”, 101 pieces, 11-16-08, image by C.F. Payne.Santa & his elves are squaring away the sleigh and figuring out which way is what for Christmas Eve.  One elf is standing by with Santa’s cup of hot chocolate while the other is elfing the cockpit of the sleigh for fine-tuning.  I no longer get the Reader’s Digest so I must have saved this print from the back cover quite a while ago—I just couldn’t resist those bumper stickers!  Only four pieces are line cut—all intact, and the puzzle is so small in size I couldn’t do much else with it except for the usual missing corners and hidden edge pieces.  I must not have been feeling very diabolical when I was cutting this one!  I did however end up having to put it together myself in the finishing process—and it took me 22 minutes directly after sanding and polishing.  I wonder how much longer it will take Eve!The Eve Factor will be posted later.  Check back!My sister-in-law Eve is an expert puzzler and familiar with all of my evil, wicked tricks.  She is my puzzle tester.  No picture, no peeks, no hints, only a box, suddenly appearing on the dining room table, beckoning.  I get a report remarkably soon after telling me how long it took her to put together.  Sometime she’ll tell me what gave her fits.  She used to tell me what household thing she had to skip doing because of the puzzle but now she looks expectantly for the next puzzle to show up and goes into withdrawals when I take too long!Just who is The Puzzle Junkie?Puzzle Junkie—definition.  Anybody who absolutely MUST do a jigsaw puzzle, NOW. Everything else comes to a screeching halt.  The social order of the day is put awry to the detriment of everyone and everything in the household.   A true puzzle junkie must be satisfied so normal life can go on--until the next time.I am a fifth generation Puzzle Junkie.  I grew up putting together the puzzles my great-great-grandfather cut and from his cutting style I learned every mean, wicked, frustratingly diabolical trick I know.  Every puzzle I cut, no matter how big or small, will have some, maybe all of these tricks in them somewhere.  Missing edge pieces, hidden corners, dropouts, inside straight pieces, fake corner pieces, split knobs and slots, irregular edges and my very favorite, color line cutting which absolutely does not include “hint knobs”.  Each puzzle also has a completely interlocking border to easily contain whichever pieces may or may not be “tricked”.  My great-great grandpa did this to my grandmother, my mother and to me so I’m doing the very same wonderfully evil thing to ya’ll!Wood and Blades.  I LOVE cutting puzzles.  Because doing what I love includes having fun at it I use three ply, 5/32” thick Finland Birch—renowned among professional puzzle cutters as one of the finest, strongest ply woods to cut.  This wood allows me to cut the fine curves, points and details that each picture tells me to put into it.  Also allowing exquisitely fine detail cutting are the famous Flying Dutchman Blades I use that are 8/1000 of an inch thick.  A smaller blade makes the fine cuts a bit tight and hard to take apart, any larger makes the cuts unacceptably loose.  Images.  The pictures I use have been culled from three decades of collecting.  Calendars and postcards mainly, sometimes an Internet picture and lately my own photographs are used for my puzzles.  Whatever image I use must pass my own critical eye as “that would make a GREAT puzzle”, one I would enjoy assembling myself, I don’t cut “figure pieces” or “whimseys” as they are known in Europe.  I find figurals distracting and they make the puzzle too easy to assemble.  To further enhance the picture, I DO line cut and dissect appropriate smaller items in every puzzle I produce to create a figural of sorts.   I let the images tell me how they want to be cut!I don’t use a signature piece.  I hand document each puzzle in ink on the reverse side.  Each puzzle is thoroughly sanded then carefully polished of any remaining bits.  Up to seven bits of information is written, each on the back of an individual, random piece.  I detail the title I’ve chosen, the size, how many pieces, the artist (if I remember!), when it was cut, the serial number and my signature.  Occasionally, if the puzzle has been cut for a specific individual or event, that too will be noted on an eighth individual piece.The Box.  When my great-great-grandfather finished a puzzle, he would scout the house for any appropriate box of correct size and strength in which to store the pieces.  I’m told it became a family joke to discover a pile of loose stationery on the writing desk or a tumbled pile of chocolates on a plate in the pantry.  He’d even swipe the box his wife’s prized imported soap came in if he was desperate enough!  I follow this tradition by stashing the pieces of my puzzles in any one of my collection of wooden, cardboard, wicker or tin boxes.  All of ‘em begged, bought, borrowed or stolen from one family member or another.  You’ll never know what kind of container your puzzle’s gonna show up in.  Guide Picture.  Oh come on!  It’s a PUZZLE people!  I never got a picture so neither do you.  My great-great-grandpa let it be known only weak, dimwitted people used a guide picture.  NOBODY gets a picture of the puzzle inside.  Ahem, I do take bribes though if you just can’t figure it out.  E-mail me. Children.  If you’ve forked out the chunk of change it took to win one of my puzzles you’re not gonna be fool enough to let kids anywhere near it.  The littlest ones will scatter the pieces, try to eat ‘em and tick you off.  The older kids might like to help you put it together, but supervise them.  I can’t tell you how many pieces of my great-great-grandpa’s puzzles have gone missing or been broken because one of us kids didn’t carefully take them apart to be put away.  Remind them continually just how special this puzzle is so they don’t lose (or break!) the pieces. So that’s the story of The Puzzle Junkie.  Make a note of my Ebay name, pumpernickel4ever, and check back in frequently.  You never know what kind of wickedly difficult, hand cut wooden jigsaw puzzle I’m gonna come up with next but I guarantee you, it’ll be one I’d enjoy putting together myself! On Nov-17-08 at 15:41:58 PST, seller added the following information:The Eve Factor:  28 minutes Place a Bid!