Paul Bunyan Puzzle

This is one of five Paul Bunyan puzzles that I've cut recently. The puzzles were cut from 3/4" clear pine using a no.#5 skip tooth blade. For the back I used 1/8" hardboard. The puzzle was painted with a wash made with thinned down acrylic craft paint. This is a great technique if you want to add some color to your project with out loosing the beauty of the wood grain. The best part of this type of finish is that if your not happy with the shade, you can simply wipe it off with a wet towel before it dries. If you didn't catch it in time, you can let the part dry thoroughly and then sand it off with some 220/320 grit sandpaper, and then reapply your color wash until you get the color that your looking for. Remember to start light, its easier to apply more, than to stop and remove some. After the color coats were applied, I used several coats of Min wax wipe on poly for the final finish, this stuff goes on easy and all you need is a soft lint free cloth, or some cheesecloth. The puzzle was originally designed for children and contains approximately 50 pieces, but I've sold several of these puzzle to adults that collect Paul Bunyan collectibles. The original artwork for the puzzle is by Russell Greenslade and was in the Fall 2007 issue of SSWC magazine. If you would like to see some more photos of the puzzle, you can visit my photo album.