Six Months Later

Six months ago I started working on the largest puzzle in the world (24,000 pieces). As of yesterday it's all done: put together, glued and hung!

I finished it on February 14th, about Four months after starting. It took a few days to glue and then. Annie and I decided to put it in the upstairs living room. Since it wouldn't fit going up the downstairs stairs, I had to wait two months for the snow to melt so I could take it outside and get it in through the front door.

It's great to have it done but unfortunately there's no where else to go but down with my hobby. That might be a good thing though since I don't think I have wall space for another one this size!

The Insanity Begins!

If you thought I was nuts when I put together my 8,000 piece puzzle of The School of Athens, then you're really going to think I've lost it now. This weekend I started working on a 24,000 piece puzzle. It's the largest in the world and has only been completed a hand full of times.

The finished puzzle measures in at 14 feet by 5 feet., which presents a little bit of a challenge in terms of space. Thankfully, we have a couple spare rooms still, one of which is just barely big enough.

Before I started I built a foam board backing that I'm using both to construct the puzzle on and later to mount it on. Since no one sells a 14ftX5ft piece of foam board I had to put it together using several 40X32 pieces. I built two overlapping layers to give it stability and then glued them together using spray adhesive. Moving it was a bit of a challenge but we did manage to get it out of the garage and into the downstairs spare room.

The puzzle comes in four bags of 6,000 pieces each and most people who've put this thing together have done it as four 6,000 piece puzzles. To each their own, but for me I've already done a 6,000 and 8,000 piece puzzle and if I'm going to do a 24,000 piece puzzle then I'm going to do a 24,000 piece puzzle. So I emptied all the bags into the box and shook it to mix them up before I started.

I have no idea how long this will take to finish. There's a ton of variety in the picture but 24,000 pieces is going to be tough no matter how you slice it.

Check out worldslargestpuzzle.com to see what the finished product will look like and to see other people who've finished the puzzle. I'm hoping to become the first person in Minnesota to finish after mixing all 24,000 pieces

Ellie helps to model just how big this puzzle is,
even while still in the bags!

Ellie in the puzzle box

After mixing and dumping all 24,000 pieces onto
my foam board monstrosity

New On My Office Walls

It turns out that gluing and mounting a gigantic puzzle isn't nearly as tough as you'd think it would be. Up until a week ago I'd never glued any puzzle, gigantic or otherwise, so before I risked ruining my 8,000 piece School of Athens I decided to try gluing and mounting a smaller one.

I settled on a 1,500 piece map of Middle Earth that I'd done once before. I chose it because it's both a pretty cool picture that would look good on my wall if the gluing worked out and because I didn't care that much about ruining it. For some reason I don't really like doing puzzles of maps so while I wasn't going to be too broken up if the project went down in flames. It took a couple days to put together and then came the moment of truth. I opened up the first jar of puzzle glue and started to spread it on. It was so thick and white that I could barely see the picture after I was done. I was thinking, "This should dry clear, right?"

Thankfully it did. I did another coat, used craft glue to put it on foam board, trimmed the edges of the foam board, and the result was fantastic!


Next up was the big one. I had to order more glue since I'd only bought two bottles, the map took over one bottle, and the other puzzle is five times bigger. The glue I used this time I worked even better. It took only one coat for most of the puzzle and then a second around the edges. I mounted it on two 60x40 sheets of foam board, trimmed the edges and used a heck of a lot of 3M mounting tape to get it on the wall.

I don't think I really appreciated just how HUGE this thing was till I got it on the wall. It looks great in the office and I'm really happy I decided to glue it.




I did one more puzzle once all that was done. This one is 2,000 pieces. I'd done it once before and thought it would look good in my office. Unlike The School of Athens, it's by no means great artwork but it's still a fun picture.


My new sword also arrived in the mail this week. It's a replica of the William Wallace sword from Braveheart. It was being sold at Boot Camp and it has Wild at Heart inscribed on the blade. I mounted it using a magnetic sword mount which makes the sword look like it's floating on the wall. Very cool.


Next up I'm doing a 2,000 piece puzzle of Monet's Starry Night. Annie thought it would look good in our bedroom. Then, in a few months I'm hoping to start on this one. It's 14 feet by 5 feet and 24,000 pieces.

8,000 Pieces Later...

After two months (and far more hours than I'd care to admit) spent working on my 8,000 piece jigsaw puzzle I'm finally done. Actually, I shouldn't use the word finally since my original prediction was that this would take me until the end of the year.

This was the largest puzzle I've ever done but it really wasn't that much tougher than the 4,000 and 6,000 piece puzzles I've done. It could be that I'm getting used to doing bigger puzzles but I also think it's because with this many pieces the minute detail actually worked in my favor. For example, if there's a guy in the picture wearing a blue cloak that blue cloak is going to stand out and when there are 8,000 pieces that makes for a lot of blue cloak pieces that can be easily found. This picture also lent itself to being able to group pieces easily. The orange and black arch pieces were easy to find and set apart. Then when I thought I had most of them set aside, I just put the arch together. The same thing for the corners, which were much darker than anything else in the puzzle and were easy to pick out.

I'm going to try and glue this one together but since I've never glued a puzzle before I think I'm going to practice on a couple of smaller puzzles first. If anyone has any ideas on mounting something this size (76X54) by all means let me know.

Unfortunately the pictures are not the greatest. Photographing an 8,000 pieces puzzle is easier said than done. Hopefully I'll be able to take some better ones once it's glued and mounted.