A Jigsaw Puzzle For the Blind

I’ve had a dumb idea clonking around in my head for at least a decade: a jigsaw puzzle for the blind.  When I was young I would see carved stone reliefs and wish I could touch them.  I thought the blind might really enjoy them.  When I joined the reddit puzzle exchange my giftee asked for a jigsaw and I knew: it was time.

This is 4.6mm birch ply. I used Inkscape and drew the lines for the puzzle on a grid.  I got the etch image by Googling “TARDIS”.  There was no original artist attribution where I found it, for which I’m very sorry.  If it was you, speak up!  The etching process was about 50 minutes and the cutting was about 10 minutes.  I would gladly make this again for someone if they wanted.

The temptation to cheat was strong.  I managed to resist by telling myself that it was good practice.  For what?  For the unforseen.  I finished in 1:34:42.3.

The piece fit was just right – more tight and I wouldn’t have been able to fit them together, more loose and I might have mistook good fits for bad.  The lines are mostly unique.  I got lazy and flipped a few of them.  That ended up making the start of the puzzle harder (edge pieces together the wrong way felt right in my hands) and the end of the puzzle easier (find the matching edges).