Safari Puzzle

This is my version of the Safari Puzzle project that was in the July 2008 issue of Wood Magazine. They made theirs from exotic woods. I made mine out of Poplar and painted the figures, I thought that this would be more colorful for children, it also helped keep the cost down as I didn't have enough small pieces of fancy wood available, and Poplar is a good sturdy wood for toys and puzzles. The original plan called for 1/2" thick stock, I chose to make mine from 3/4" so the figures would stand up alone. I made the base a little wider to accommodate the wider dados, the base is 22" long x 6-1/4" wide.

The puzzle is painted with acrylic craft paints and finished with a couple coats of Watco Laquer.





















Unfortunately this pattern isn't free, but it is fairly inexpensive. If you would like to make a Safari Puzzle, you can buy the pattern from Wood Magazine on this page, it's a downloadable plan available as a pdf file.