Purple Martin Puzzles creates artistic hand-cut wooden jigsaw puzzles

Welcome To Purple Martin Puzzles

Uncle Carlton's Puzzles

Here are some examples of my Great-Great Uncle Carlton's puzzles that he cut from the early 1900's through the late1930's. He used a treadle saw when he first started. He later purchased a Delta Specialty Co. Model DSS-1 Scroll Saw around 1931? and used blades so thin (0.004 x 0.020), they are almost the size of a horse hair. Look through his puzzles and stop back from time-to-time as I add more of his work.

Carlton R. Irick

This puzzle is titled "Cartoon Characters" although they are from comic strip characters. The size is 12" x 10" and as you can tell, there is no picture. Most of the figurals are complex or multi-piece. See if you can find all the figurals. To see if you are correct, click on the color version, where I colored in all the figurals (digitally, of course). This puzzle took about a week to assemble. Color Version.

This puzzle is titled "Dicken's Characters". The size is approximately 6" x 8". As you can see, there is no picture. We think it was cut in the late 1920's with the treadle saw. It is cut from 3/16" slice of Gum-wood (thanks to an expert). See if you can find all 17 figurals, most of which are complex or multi-piece. This puzzle took my dad about 14 hours to assemble.

This puzzle is also titled "Dicken's Characters". The size is approximately 8" x 10". As you can see, there is no picture. We think it was cut in the late 1920's with the treadle saw. It is cut from 1/4" slice of hardwood. We believe the figures were painted by a family member later (1950's?). This puzzle took about 7 hours to assemble.

Go Back to Home Page