About Our Jigsaw Puzzles | Materials | Sizes | Process
About Our Jigsaw Puzzles
We use the highest quality materials in manufacturing all of our puzzles here at the Wimberley Puzzle Company, including our custom puzzles. From the puzzle backing to the puzzle print and finally, to the bag and box, that your puzzle is boxed and shipped in.
We offer numerous piece counts, including 250 piece puzzles, 250-large piece puzzles, 500 piece puzzles, and a huge 22x33" 1000 piece puzzle!
Wimberley Puzzle Company puzzle prints are color-calibrated for our paper of choice - a thick, fingerprint and glare-resistant fine art paper (described in-depth below) and then printed on a professional wide format printer.
Puzzle Paper and Printing Process
Fine Art Prints
The puzzles I create actually start life as fine art prints - what is known as a giclée. This is the technology used to develop the fine art prints that you'll see at photographic exhibitions and galleries worldwide, used to bridge the divide between digital and tangible.
Puzzle Paper
Our paper is a thick and durable, 60lb., 11 mil (.011") matte finish fine art paper - very much like thick greeting card stock. It is anti-reflective and anti-fingerprint - meant to be handled and enjoyed and non-distracting in any puzzle assembly location.
How often do you struggle to see what's actually on that piece you're holding because it reflects the overhead light so severely? That will not happen with my puzzles.
This paper features a bright white surface, providing excellent contrast in your print. It has a luxurious matte finish with a wide color gamut that brings out the true beauty of the original image as captured. This paper relishes the opportunity to put on display even the most minor nuances of detail.
Much of puzzling is about the tactile sensation of the pieces. This paper is slightly textured and, combined with the thick puzzle backing that is used, creates a piece with heft.
Our puzzle paper is acid-free, just like a fine art print should be. Paper that is not pH balanced will quickly yellow and degrade the finished product.
All of these wonderful paper traits do you no good if we don't use the printing technology to support those preservation benefits. This is why we print in-house using archival dye-pigment inks to preserve the original colors for generations to come.
(P.S. Did you know, a lot of the puzzle pieces out there are only about 1.2mm thick, which means our paper alone is nearly 25% as thick as an everyday piece!)
Wooden Jigsaw Puzzle Backing Materials
1/8" Baltic Birch
Our premium wooden puzzle offering is a 1/8" thick Baltic Birch imported from the Baltics. We chose Baltic Birch because of its sustainability, consistency, and quality. The wood plys consist of 100% birch wood - meaning no fillers or unknown softwoods.
Birch is an abundant and fast-growing species of tree, and this sustainability was part of our decision.
Compared to other products often used in wooden puzzles, such as Basswood, Baltic Birch offers unparalleled strength due to the fact that it's a veneer core plywood. In a technique known as cross-banding, each layer is turned 90-degrees to the prior layer, which allows for excellent strength in all directions.
Our wooden puzzles are sanded as smooth as a baby's bottom, then stained, and finally, finished with a satin protective coating. Our finishing is reminiscent of what you would find on expensive furniture!
Puzzle Sizes
We offer our puzzles in three primary sizes, and three different piece cuts to obtain several different cuts for each puzzle. One of our primary goals in designing a puzzle is to create a puzzle that doesn't need tweezers or forceps to assemble.
We don't like tiny puzzle pieces, so our prints tend to be a bit larger to obtain the same piece counts you'll find elsewhere.
250-Piece Puzzles
Our smallest puzzle size, 250-pieces and measuring 10x15" is perfect for a quick evening of puzzling, by yourself or with a friend. Even our smallest puzzles incorporate numerous StoryPieces™.
The average piece size for a 250 piece puzzle is about .6", not factoring in the interlocks, which will make most pieces a bit bigger.
500 Piece Puzzles
Our 500-piece puzzles are our most popular. The actual size is listed in each puzzle description. These puzzles are generally 16x23", 16x20" or 18x20".
The average piece size, not factoring in the size of the interlocks, is between 0.65 to 0 .72 inches. The interlocks can make the individual pieces up to around 1 inch.
Large Piece Puzzles
Though our pieces tend to run a bit on the larger size compared to other manufacturers, we also manufacture Large Piece Puzzles. These large piece puzzles are perfect for seniors, kids, those with limited finger or hand dexterity, or even those that just enjoy puzzles, want a larger puzzle, but no so many pieces!
The average piece size for a large size puzzle ranges from around 1.28 inches to 1.50 inches.
1000-Piece Puzzles
Our most recent size offering is a 22x33" 1000 piece puzzle. In keeping with the theme of having larger pieces than other puzzles, we cut our 1,000 piece puzzles with larger prints than any other puzzles that you'll find on the market.
The average piece size of our 1,000 puzzles is approximately .72" without interlocks. This means they are roughly the same piece size as our 500 piece puzzles and the largest in the industry.
These are perfect puzzles for those that enjoy a challenge, like to take their time, or perfect for a family or group of friends to put together.
And, they are loaded with fun StoryPieces!