How to quickly solve big puzzles. My biggest puzzle and its speedy picking

As you know, the puzzle is quite entertaining and interesting game, which attracts the attention of not only children, but also many adults. This allows you to develop fine motor skills of the hands, logical thinking, and just spend time with interest, forgetting about daily worries. Of course, with puzzles that consist of two dozen pieces, there will be no problems, but how to assemble puzzles that have several thousand elements?

You will need:

• cardboard board

Instruction:

1. It is convenient enough to assemble puzzles on a wooden or cardboard board. If it is not available, you can use a regular paper sheet. As a rule, the dimensions of the picture (usually in mm) that should be obtained are indicated on the packaging of the puzzle. You should draw a rectangle of the same size on the cardboard. This will greatly simplify the task, because the entire process of your work will take place in this rectangle. It is worth noting that you need to draw it not by hand, but by a ruler.

2. It is always recommended to start from the extreme parts, because there are much fewer of them than the rest of the elements. If you assemble a frame from the extreme details, then the process will go much easier. To do this, it is recommended to go through all the pieces, choosing elements with straight edges. First of all, it is better to put four "corners", which will have two straight edges. Thus, you will get a frame with a thickness of one element.

3. Here you should also pay attention to the shape of the "tails". They can be either curved or straight. Keep in mind that each puzzle retains the verticality of the pieces, which means that all tails of the same type are either horizontal or vertical. Carefully study the image that should turn out. Thanks to this, you will be able to define the top on almost every detail.

4. Rarely enough, but still the following anomaly occurs. In some sets, the columns and rows may not be symmetrical. Here you will need to show more patience - and everything will definitely work out. Pay attention to the fact that convex ponytails can have varying degrees of flattening. Different sizes there are also cells for ponytails.

5. If you have no desire to look closely at the ponytails and other features of the details, then separate them by color. This is not very difficult, but it will greatly simplify the further procedure. So, taking away all the pieces blue color, it will be easier to collect the sky. If there is a building in the drawing, make a separate pile of parts with its parts.

6. Assembled puzzles can be safely used as paintings. To do this, stick each piece on solid foundation and enclose it in a frame. You can also apply a clear varnish to the drawing, which will fasten all the elements of the puzzle together. This picture will be a great decoration for your room.

Tips and Cautions:

Since the puzzle pieces are made of painted cardboard, they must be handled with care. It should be remembered that with careless handling, the elements can break or deform, which will create some discomfort when composing the picture. It is also worth eliminating the ingress of moisture on cardboard pieces.

Fact:

Did you know that the history of puzzles began in England in 1761? It was then that the dealer in geographical maps decided to cut his products, thereby inventing a new tutorial. By collecting such elements, the students learned geography better. The novelty was a huge success, and in the future, everything that was possible began to be divided into pieces - images of historical battles, portraits, and even biblical events.

Several hundred scattered pieces of cardboard. On the front side of each of them, an incomprehensible image is applied. But if you put them in a certain way, then a natural landscape or an ancient castle, graceful animals or outlandish plants, noble lines will appear before a zealous collector. expensive car or a silhouette crashing into the sky big city. Everyone will be able to find a puzzle picture to their liking. Her name is puzzle ("puzzle").

Well, first of all, there is a free way to join the puzzles: to collect them online. A very large collection of paintings located on the site Gallerix.ru is also a very large collection of puzzles. If you want to collect puzzles virtually, then here is a place where there are a lot of them:
Collect puzzles online at Gallerix.ru

And when choosing and assembling a cardboard puzzle, it is worth answering a few questions:

1. How to choose a puzzle manufacturer?

If it is desirable to obtain a high-quality picture, you should pay attention to the company that made the puzzle. Manufacturers that have earned the trust of buyers include such companies as the Polish Trefl and Castorland, the German Ravensburger, Heye and Piatnik, the Spanish Educa, the Italian Clementoni, the Russian Step.

2. How many pieces should the puzzle consist of?

It is hardly necessary to immediately choose a puzzle consisting of several thousand pieces. Such a puzzle is not cheap, and the chance to assemble it (for a person without relevant experience, of course) is small. It’s best to start with a puzzle of 300-500 pieces and after that, having stuffed your hand, start with sets of 1000-4000 pieces. Experienced collectors work with puzzles of 13,200, 18,000 and even 24,000 pieces!

3. Which picture to choose?

Of course, the most liked! But keep in mind that a puzzle with large solid areas (such as the sky area, for example) may be too difficult to assemble. Also difficult to complete is a puzzle depicting an oil painting (especially made in the technique of impressionism). In this case, only parts of large strokes of the artist's brush will be visible on the details of the puzzle.

4. How to choose the location of the puzzle?

The question is not at all idle. Assembling a small puzzle takes a couple of hours, but a larger puzzle will require several days, weeks, and possibly months. During this time, details may be lost. To avoid this, it is worth preparing several boxes in which the sorted parts will be stored. The surface on which the puzzle will be located should be flat and easily portable (we will see why later).

5. How to start collecting a puzzle?

First of all, you need to sort the details, selecting those that correspond to the edges of the future image. Having assembled the puzzle frame, we get the basis for further assembly. Having carefully examined the picture on the box, we note the places that are most easily identified. Let's collect them and place them approximately where they should be according to the picture. So, the easiest stage of assembling the puzzle has been completed.

6. How to assemble solid-color puzzle areas?

The monotony of the sky, sea or vegetation can confuse a novice puzzle collector. However, do not despair! The pieces of the puzzle should be tightly adjacent to each other, and there should be no notches or protrusions in the cut lines of adjacent pieces.

As a rule, puzzle pieces alternate in a certain sequence depending on their shape. If you identify the pattern of their location, you can collect a solid area very quickly. But do not forget that a modern puzzle consists of parts of many shapes (up to 16) and it may not be so easy to catch the logic of their arrangement.

7. The puzzle is completed. What to do next?

It depends on the purpose for which the puzzle was assembled. If only for fun, then you can disassemble the puzzle in order to return to it again after a while. But after all, the assembled puzzle can also be used as decoration! Of course, the resulting picture is hardly worthy of taking a place in the living room, bedroom or hallway. But why not hang an appetizing still life in the kitchen, and attach a beautiful landscape to the wall of a country house?

So, we turn the assembled puzzle into a finished picture. We press the front part of the picture with a piece of plywood and, picking up the surface on which the puzzle is located, turn it upside down. Remove the back surface (that's why it should be easy to carry!) and carefully apply an even layer of glue to the puzzle. Some manufacturers complete the puzzle with a tube of special glue - you should use it. Adhesive tape or adhesive tape is also used to fasten parts. You can stick the puzzle on cardboard or plywood, but in this case there is some risk: as a result of unsuccessful gluing, the puzzle may arch.

Who invented puzzles? Honestly, I don't know the answer to this question, but I do know that it's an enjoyable pastime (for me personally).
Puzzles are small pieces that make up pictures. My first puzzle was for 1000 pieces ... I collected it for a long time and tediously, in the end I threw it away and half of the details were lost. I returned to collecting puzzles later, my husband and I bought a puzzle for 1,500 thousand. And they came up with their own collection scheme (maybe it's not new, I don't know).
1. They took a sheet of plexiglass (my dad had it in the garage) and began to assemble a picture on it.
2. From the whole mass of parts, we chose parts with a smooth edge
3. We assembled a frame from these parts.
4. Arranged the remaining parts by color. (usually the pictures are bright and it's easy to do)
5. Putting a box with a picture of a picture in front of us, we collect the individual parts and join them together.
6. After the picture is assembled, place it in a frame under glass.
Here is an example of a picture we collected (for 3 thousand parts) it was collected for about a week and a half (and then only in the evenings after work)
undersea world

If it is not possible to purchase a frame for a picture, then you can do this:
1. We need a wide transparent adhesive tape and patience.
2. We glue the front of the picture with tape along the long side of the strip by strip, smoothing the tape with your hand.
3. We do it carefully so that there are no wrinkles.
4. We hang the resulting picture on the wall.
Here are examples of our paintings without frames.

Putting together puzzles calms the nerves, develops memory and brings a lot of pleasure (and I also get distracted from thinking about food)

Apr 07

One of my wishes in the wishlist was to complete a big, big puzzle. I've been dreaming about this for quite some time. But constantly something did not grow together: there was no suitable place where to collect; the picture that I liked was only 1000 details; then the price of the puzzle you liked was too high; I just didn't like the pictures. In general, everything is difficult:)))

Initially, I wanted a puzzle with 5,000 pieces, but I heard a lot of talk that the assembly would take half a year, or even more, so I lowered the bar to 3,000 pieces. Because I wanted the puzzle to hang on the wall before we left this house. And very, by the way, in vain! Should have taken 5000.

In February, as they say, the puzzle came together :) There is enough space in the house to assemble the puzzle, suddenly I came across a picture on eBay that I liked very much and it ended up with the right amount details, so unexpectedly dad paid for everything as a gift on March 8 :)

The puzzle from eBay flew very quickly! Whoever is in the subject understands what cool emotions you experience when you tear open the package and pour fresh little parts into the box that smell deliciously like cardboard. When I saw this mountain of details, I thought it was great that there are 3000 of them, not 5000. It's good that I took less :)

In the store (in Big C and Tesco they sell) I bought 8 plastic sheets in the stationery department. I don't even know what they are for. For modeling, perhaps, or drawing. I planned to glue 4 sheets together with adhesive tape and assemble a puzzle on the floor on them, and 4 more sheets were needed to cover the half-assembled picture from the Shaman. She attracted him like a magnet! Plus, he appreciated the plastic sheets, he liked to lie on them.

A start! The shaman helps with might and main :) He is generally a “well done” awesome guy helped me, especially at the end. Well, you yourself will see this “help” soon.

I would like to say a huge thank you to John Spilsbury for the idea! If anyone does not know, then this is the person who invented the puzzles. John Spilsbury lived in 18th century London. He traded geographical maps on which children studied. To make the learning process more exciting, he glued the map onto a wooden base and cut it along the borders of the kingdoms. That is how the first puzzle appeared. Exact date not known. By various information this happened between 1760 and 1764. Spilsbury in his life managed to make about 30 types of different puzzles based on geographical maps. Subsequently, puzzles lost their role exclusively didactic material for schoolchildren and began to be used as separate view puzzles. Initially, only children from wealthy families could afford puzzles. And only in the twentieth century, when the wooden base of the puzzles was replaced with cardboard, the price for them became affordable.

In 1909, the Parker Brothers opened the first factory in the United States to manufacture jigsaw puzzles with fastened parts, which have since become popular throughout the world. To date, there is a puzzle consisting of 32,000 elements. This is the biggest puzzle in the world so far. I would love to collect one!!! *smiley with glowing eyes* I saw a box of such a puzzle on YouTube - it's huge! I can imagine how heavy it is!

Here it is this puzzle from Ravensburger for 32,000 pieces. Not good beautiful picture, as for me.

On collecting puzzles, championships are held, online competitions are arranged. For the first time, the championship in collecting puzzles for speed was organized in 1992, in New York, by American Will Shorts. Since then, it has been held annually in different cities and countries. In 2008 this championship was held in Minsk. In 2014 it will be held in London. In Russia, such championships in speed puzzle assembly began to be held only in 2010. I hope we will get to the World Championship soon.

There is even an international Spilsbury award, which is given to people who have made a significant contribution to the development of the popularity of puzzles. So, in 2007, the American Ann Williams received this award for writing two books on the history of puzzles and a number of articles on the influence of puzzles on popular culture.

To date, the highest quality puzzles are Ravensburger, Clementoni, Educa, Castroland and Trefl. My puzzle is from Educa and I'm happy with it :)

A couple of days after I started to assemble the puzzle, I got sick. But the desire to collect was so unbearable that I took one plastic sheet, selected the white parts and climbed into bed with all this stuff. I was frightened that the one-color sky is a cruel tin with which I will have to suffer even more. In the end, the sky was the easiest thing for me in this picture. I assembled it in a few hours, lying in bed with a high fever :)

By the way, it was sooo uncomfortable to assemble on the floor. The back was terribly tired. Therefore, I divided the picture approximately in half and transferred it to the table. Sitting at the table, collecting has become much more convenient and faster :)

I remembered something. My very first big puzzle, with 1000 pieces, was bought for me in Moscow when we were passing through. They just appeared so big on sale and it was a curiosity. I still remember the positive emotions that I experienced. It was a puzzle with Pocahontas, a cartoon that I really liked at that time, and I still like it now, really :) I even found a picture on the Internet !!! This is exactly what my first puzzle looked like :) Only there were no signatures, just a clean picture.

And that's how I remember now, I'm sitting in an armchair, in a fluffy robe the color of a little chicken, in a Moscow apartment with relatives, holding a box of puzzles in my hands, stroking it. Horror, how you want to open the package with parts and start collecting! But I endure. I'm afraid that some element may be lost and the picture will be damaged. But the funny thing is that I'm not the only one interested! Parents too! Especially dad. As a result, he persuaded me to open the package, but I set the condition that he would then count all the details one by one.

In general, we collected this puzzle a little with dad. So it was unusual. Such a thrill! There seemed to be SO many details, just dizzy! And then dad sat and counted every detail, and I carefully watched and controlled that everything was in place and not one was lost. By the way, I just have some kind of phobia, every time I put together a puzzle, I worry that some detail will be missing. Mom sent a photo of how we put together that puzzle then :) So interesting!

I then with this puzzle as soon as not perverted. And for a while I collected, both along the horizontal and vertical lines, and according to the colors. Then she came up with the idea that it is necessary to sing songs from the cartoon in the process of collecting. I learned the words to two Pocahontas songs and then mumbled them under my breath during assembly. And then I decided to assemble the puzzle from the “wrong side”! And collected, and even more than once and for a while. In general, I was as creative as I could to diversify the same type of game :)

Then I got a puzzle for 1000 pieces with a picture from the cartoon "The Lion King" and for 1500 pieces with a photo of some kitten. I also adored them and collected 100500 times different ways. And that's all the big puzzles I've ever had.

But the most beloved and valuable is Pocahontas. It is now kept by my mother in Tambov. I remember it so much that I even wanted to collect it :)

The bottom half is almost done! Hurrah Hurrah!!! I'm sure I'll finish the picture tomorrow. All in joyful anticipation!

And exactly one minute after the previous photo, the Shaman decides to jump on the table, his heavy ass does not jump, his claw falls into the gap between the elements and he pulls ALL half to the floor. All this happened in a second, I did not have time to do anything. AAAA!!! The entire floor in the living room was strewn with details :)

No, I didn't kill the cat after that. What to do if he is so clumsy. I collected all the details in a box and went to bed, with a firm decision tomorrow to assemble the picture completely!

And almost from the very morning of Saturday I sat down at the puzzle. It was like this last night! Almost, almost ready :) I thought about finishing it on the floor, but the Shaman began to play pranks again. He began to run around the picture and once pushed off so much that he moved it from the substrate to the floor !!! I decided to divide the picture again and finish it on the table.

Bottom half. Done!

7 am, Sunday :) I've been collecting the puzzle since Saturday morning. So rushing that you don’t even want to sleep. I would like to finish it as soon as possible :) And how can I fall asleep here when there are just a few details left. The phobia turned on, you need to know for sure that no part was missing after yesterday's crash on the floor.

Ready! Yeeha! :)

Puzzle photo session for Instagram. The shaman is right there!

Image scale. On the pictures it looks much smaller than in reality.

What can I say - it was necessary to take a puzzle for 5000 pieces. Still, 3000 is too easy for me. I assembled it mega quickly without straining at all. Three weeks later, the puzzle was ready, but for one week I did not approach it at all. By the way, I can calculate the approximate net build time.

Every time I sat down to do a puzzle, I turned on the movie. As a result, I watched 34 films in total. If not for the "help" of the cat, then there would be 30 of them. Oh well. The film is approximately 90 minutes long. Accordingly, I completed the puzzle in 3060 minutes, which is 51 hours, which is a little more than 2 days. Lightness, in short.

In this photo, Shaman pretends to be a diligent cat. But actually a second ago, he decided to sharpen his claws on the sky! After my formidable remark, he lay down next to me, but looking straight into my eyes, his claw continues to pick a brown detail. Oh, this cat!!!

For another whole week, the puzzle just lay on the table, because I was thinking about how to glue it together. But glue it so that it is mobile. So that you can remove it from the wall, take it apart and take it with you to another house. I categorically did not want to turn it over, because I was sure that everything would fall apart, because there was a weak bond between the parts. I decided that I would order newfangled glue on eBay, which is applied over the picture and does not leave marks. But then the picture would cease to be mobile. In short, when I studied all types of puzzle glues, found the best one and went to ebay to order it, it turned out that 3 jars of glue with delivery would cost me the same price as the puzzle!

In the end, it was decided in favor of adhesive tape! I divided the picture into 6 parts. Lenya turned each part over for me with the help of two plastic sheets on which I assembled. Not a single piece fell off, by the way. It feels like he turned puzzles all his life :) I glued each part separately with tape.

Then I connected the joints not very tightly so that you could just tear off the adhesive tape and get 6 pieces of the puzzle that you can take anywhere :)

Lenya glued double-sided tape.

And hung it on the wall :))) It became very cool! And the puzzle finally hid the stains on the wall that were left by the previous tenants and bothered me just as much as they did :)

The wall immediately became complete :) The length of the puzzle is 120 centimeters. I don't know why he looks so small in the photo.

Well, beauty! :)

,

Putting together puzzles - an incredibly exciting process that allows you to have fun and usefully spend time. But to make this activity enjoyable and not too tiring, you need to follow simple and effective tips.

When buying a puzzle, you should give preference to well-known manufacturers. Only having a high-quality puzzle, you can happily plunge into work, without being distracted by minor troubles due to defective parts and inconsistencies in the configuration.

Assembly preparation

Assembling the puzzle takes a very long time and can stretch for weeks or months depending on the
image complexity. The first step is to carefully consider where the workplace, and how it is convenient to equip it so that the puzzle in an unfinished state is not damaged, and its details are not lost.

Do not sit on the floor or dining table- this is fraught with loss of detail. It is best to allocate a special table for such purposes. The place to work on the puzzle must meet the following requirements:

1. The surface of the table must be larger than the size of the puzzle.
2. The chair should be comfortable, allowing you to keep your back straight.
3. Good overhead lighting should be equipped, use a table lamp.

Beginning of assembly

Before proceeding directly to picking up the puzzle, you should sort out all the details. This laborious and meticulous process will take a lot of time, but then it will significantly affect the assembly speed. For these purposes, you need to prepare small cardboard or plastic boxes.

Puzzle pieces can be sorted according to the following criteria:

1. By form. In almost all puzzles there are standard figures of parts - short, large, long, irregular in shape.
2. By color scheme. Separate puzzles of light tones from dark ones, monochromatic and clearly distinguished by color details, the background of the future picture.
3. Frame details. The puzzles that make up the frame should form a separate group, regardless of color and shape.

Sorted parts should be laid out in boxes in one layer in even rows so that each element is clearly visible. Having done this work, you can begin to assemble the frame. Having selected details in a separate group and looking at a sample image, this will not be difficult. The finished frame will give you an idea of ​​the dimensions of the puzzle and help you avoid mistakes at the beginning.

Assembly technique

The assembly process is quite slow, requiring attention and patience. Experienced assemblers develop their effective methods, allowing you to cope with thousands of puzzles in the shortest possible time. But you can choose the best assembly method only in practice.

There are such methods:

But it is almost impossible to use only one of these methods, completely excluding the other. In the process of work, you can resort to combining assembly methods and even creating your own unique technique.

Having mastered the technique of assembling puzzles, you can not only diversify your leisure time, but also develop visual memory, train accuracy and attentiveness. Ready-made puzzles will be an excellent decoration of the room in the form of paintings.

Puzzle of life