The next step in puzzle making

Made on a Glowforge
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I continue to experiment, I am not yet fully happy with the surface. The hodgepodge formula I used leaves a bit of streakiness in the photo that can’t really be seen here. I’ll try a different formula and perhaps spray polyurethane. This is 5x7 but these are tests. I get the technique down and I’ll go big. The support board is :proofgrade: MDF.

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Great puzzle. I was watching a video on YouTube by Make Something and he took a printout of a picture and used spray adhesive to the back of the picture to adhere it to the board. That might be something to try! :grinning:

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We’ve got the adhesion down, I’m just not completely satisfied with the surface treatment yet.

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Have you tried printing on gloss or satin photopaper? That would be a much better finish than ordinary inkjet paper.

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:grinning:That looks pretty darn good to me…it’s got a nice gloss.

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It is a good photo paper. And yes much better than conventional gloss. This is a simi matt. I don’t know if a customer would care but the hodgepodge over it leaves a ever so slight brush grain. It is too slight to see in the photo, if I did it with flash you’d see it.

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Try spray ModPodge or spray acrylic perhaps?

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Another possibility if you have an inexpensive laminator: put your photo in a laminator pouch (I believe they are polyester but you should check) together with a sheet of typing paper behind it, and run through the laminator. Trim off all sides right to the edge of the photo and throw away the backside of the laminated print with typing paper. The front side will have your photo with a nice glossy laminated coating on it. Then you can adhere your photo to the wood or bookboard base for the puzzle. I would cover the top with a low tack masking to protect it, then cut the puzzle in your Glowforge. Anyway, this is how I would do a puzzle.

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Kids projects always utilized a layer of Elmer’s glue that dried into a kind of laminate.

How does dried Elmer’s cut in a GF, anyone?

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I didn’t know that Modpodge came in spray, I’ll have to look into that.

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I can’t speak to Elmer’s directly but the ModPodge acts like it is not even there.

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