Mitch Peacock builds a tilting stand for jigsaw puzzles

I never realised that stands for jigsaw puzzles were a thing until I was asked by a friend to make one. Angling the surface apparently makes the experience much easier on the dissectologist.

My friend’s requirements were pretty specific, in that the surface area had to be a certain size, covered in something that would stop pieces sliding under gravity, and bounded by a frame to avoid catching the edges when leaning over it. Total control of the tilt wasn’t required, although a good selection of stops between horizontal and 45° were desired. Finally, the stand was to be used on a moderately sized circular table most of the time, and so the base had to be somewhat smaller than the surface.

I chose to use a notched adjustment system for the tilt, and this dictated the base to be made of a reliable hardwood, oak in this case. The main surface was kept light, using pine framing and a thin ply deck, which would be covered with felt baize to hold the puzzle pieces.

Cutting list

Making the easel

1. The pine stock for the outer frame was first shaped with a hand plane into a bullnose
2. Any facets left from planing were then removed using a concave card scraper. By twisting and tilting the card scraper, a good contact was achieved with the bullnose
3. A rebate and groove were run for the baize-covered ply board, leaving sufficient meat for joining the pieces together with loose tenons
4. Loose tenons are a quick and reliable way to join components like these. I used a Domino jointer to cut the mortises, but a router would produce the same results. The loose tenons can be cut from a strip prepared on a tablesaw and planed to a snug fit
5. The bullnose of the top and bottom frame parts is transferred to the ends of the sides with a flush cut saw followed by a block plane
6. The felt baize was attached to the thin ply using a spray-on contact adhesive. To ensure good adhesion, pressure should be applied over the whole surface. The baize is easily stretched and wrinkled, so I used a flooring roller to avoid this
7. The completed surface frame, ready for some paint before final assembly. The two intermediate stretchers will be the attachment area for the base frame, and also provide further support to the plywood
8. Once the paint had dried, the surface frame was finally assembled. The loose tenons make the glue-up a little more pressurised, with twice as many mortises requiring glue. In this case the 16 mortises
9. With the surface frame glued and curing, I prepared all the parts for the tilting base
10. The mechanism is basically two hinged frames with a hinged pair of arms that locate in notches. My solution was to use beech dowel rods as hinge pins, and bore pivot holes for them in the frames and arms
11. The frames also required counterbored holes for the attachment screws. A stepped drill bit, like that used for pocket screws, would be ideal for these, but I simply bored the large hole to depth and then continued through with the shank clearance hole
12. To attach the pivot holes to the surface frame I used short blocks, which when boring should be clamped to maintain control
13. I did actually cut some joinery by hand. The stretchers for the base frame were made from pine, and had their tenons sawn the traditional way
14. To enable the base to collapse horizontally, the swing arms needed to be shaped more like a traditional knuckled leaf. Once the pivot holes were bored, most of the arm was ripped down the centre and …
15  … the waste sawn away. The sawn edges were planed and the rounds of the knuckles rasped and filed smooth
16.  The base frame was glued up with the dowel rod in place to keep it aligned
17.  I actually forgot to cut the notches before gluing the base frame. They should be cut with the two rails clamped together to ensure they match
18. Sawing the notches in the assembled frame worked, but was awkward, and required duplicating the marking out, which is always a chance for mistakes
19. Final testing, with marker pens substituted for the dowel rods which were next cut to length and installed
20 The finished easel

Making the easel

I have since drawn up a set of plans which you can order as a PDF (for free or a donation) from my website: mitchpeacock.co.uk

Further reading

Making a Jigsaw Puzzle

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