Rob Garner of Amber Puzzles Typical Figure-It-Out Style Jigsaw DSC07098

A big thank you to our two members who gave such interesting talks on Saturday May 21st for our first BCD lecture session on zoom, independent of a meeting. Chairman Pete recorded the session so it will be available to all BCD members eventually if you missed it or would like view it again or study it.

Nicki's talk was about her commissioning relationship with Rob Garner and a retrospective of his cutting career from 2000-2015 of some 1300 jigsaws. Nicki (a member of the British Jigsaw Library) bought her first two as a result of a BCD flyer in 2008 - the first time she had seen 3D-enhanced layered jigsaws. Rob was a seasoned fretwork-cutter, but not a puzzler himself and his first jigsaws were fairly simple. Rob joined BCD in 2001 after poring over Tom Tyler's book and used his contact with the club to understand what serious puzzlers want from their jigsaws. He was proud to win a contract to cut 100 jigsaws for the British Jigsaw Library owner Dave Cooper, at least one of which was sent in the Sandringham royal hamper.

Rob wrote two short articles for the BCD magazine 'My Cutting Career to Date' (Issue 66) and 'How a Very Puzzling Jigsaw Was Made' (Issue 70). In the first he describes his equipment '... first using my trusty hand frame, and then with a Hobbies Royal treadle machine, still in excellent working condition at 100 years old!' and mentions inspiration from a caption in Tom's book, “The art of the Jigsaw lies in the Talent of the cutter”. The second piece describes his collaboration with James Dalgety to produce for his museum a jigsaw incorporating as many as possible of the special techniques that Bob Armstrong had identified in his articles about cutting techniques (and development of vocabulary and scheme for classifying cutting styles). Conrad Armstrong had managed to include 21, but Rob incorporated 24 in his jigsaw featuring a painting of the Taj Mahal and a cutting theme 'Love for All Time'.

Rob eventually cut around 250 jigsaws for Nicki, and her job in their partnership was to source his plywood and locate attractive images suitable for puzzles and to display his special skills, particularly for accurate colour-line cutting. Finding a good local supplier of reliable quality plywood and getting sheets of it to him was easier than sourcing images (and a supply of boxes). Rob used gift boxes at first, bought up Wentworth's stock of maroon boxes when they redesigned their packaging, and eventually found a supplier of cream boxes. Nicki showed examples of all of Rob's main cutting styles and his whimsy templates:
- line-cut with earlet knobs, interlocking
- line-cut with single knobs, semi-interlocking or push-fit within an interlocking frame
- shaped figure-it-out style
- 3D-enhanced style, usually with two or at most three levels.

Rob was always concerned that jigsaws should hang together and so his line-cutting was never the extreme type that Genest does, and he always included some tabs straying over the colour boundaries. His 3D-enhancements were generally restricted to one or at most a few smallish areas, unlike the more recent dizzying developments in that style by Terry and Heather. As Nicki is not fond of too many whimsies Rob stuck to a few favourites - his trio R, heart and beloved dog Rufus - and perhaps a couple more appropriate to the image and usually wittily placed. Another feature he would often include was an 'elbow-shaped' piece which turned through 90 degrees and wrapped around other pieces and occasionally split-earlet knobs.
I have created an album and a gallery of Rob's jigsaws here - please help if you have others that you would like to be showcased:

www.flickr.com/photos/50241745@N05/albums/72157719696044053

www.flickr.com/photos/50241745@N05/galleries/721577197219...

My first contact with Nicki was via ebay when I wrote to her saying I was really happy to have won an Amber jigsaw she sold, predating my joining BCD, and we started corresponding. This photo shows a shaped jigsaw by Rob, one of a number of photocopied sheets she sent me to help a puzzle-commissioning newbie learn about jigsaws and cutting styles. We finally met at the 2015 BCD House Party, where she was showcasing new jigsaws from both Rob Garner & Howard Smeeton, and I showed her a number of artwork prints that I was keen to get cut and which she helped to prepare for Rob.
Unfortunately my own commissioning of Rob only stretched over the last 12-18month of his career, when he gave up for health reasons and returned several of my prints, but about half of my eighteen Amber jigsaws were bought new. I have six with 3D-enhancement, all second-hand, as Rob didn't think my early choices for 3D were feasible for him. I believe one of the 2D ones may have been produced for the British Jigsaw Library (The Health of the Bride), but I bought it form Nicki, not Dave Cooper or subsequent owner David Shearer.

Taken on: May 21, 2022

Sets appears in: • Shaped Hand-Cut Jigsaws • Rob Garner more » • modern hand cut jigsaws « less

Groups appears in: • Jigsaws • Good Old Barefoot Days more » • Wooden Jigsaw Puzzles • Artistic Puzzles • Traditional Wooden Jigsaws • BCD Just Jigsaws « less

Camera: Sony DSC-HX90V, f/3.5, 1/1000 sec, 4.1mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony DSC-HX90V
Aperture:	f/3.5
Exposure Time:	0.001 sec (1/1000)
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ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-0.3 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
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