Making a Puzzle file with SCAL4, puzzle generator & ScanNCut Jen Blausey

[@IraQNid]

I used a free set of Jigsaw puzzle .SVG & .FCM of a 25 piece jigsaw puzzle. I then downloaded the Windows 10 version of CanvasWorkspace. I imported the file, made 1 duplicate horizontally and aligned it perfectly to the edge of the original puzzle shape. Then I used "select all" to group that together, duplicated it, repeated the horizontal alignment once more. This gave me 100 pieces to work with but my goal was to create a 1,000 piece puzzle for letter-sized prints. I made another duplicate and placed it along the horizontal edge with perfect alignment once more. I resized my first two sets down to 4 square inches. This allowed me to cram in more puzzle pieces. This is where the zoom feature of CanvasWorkspace comes in handy. You can type in the exact magnification percentage or use the up & down icons to adjust it in 10% steps. Once I was happy with 200 pieces across the top row I chose "select all" once more, then in "layers" I chose "Group all", then I used "Copy", "Paste" to make duplicates. I was having some problems with the software recognizing what I was trying to do. But good old copy & paste worked like charm. All I had to do from that point was copy & paste four more times. Using the zoom feature and the arrow keys on my keyboard to nudge the shapes into perfect alignment. You can hold down the "Shift" key while holding down your physical arrow keys to make your selections move much faster. Then when you need finer control stop using the "shift" key. The software has a limit of 3 grouped sets. Once you hit that it won't let you group any other set of objects. I made two versions: 1,000 piece Jigsaw Puzzle 1,600 piece Jigsaw Puzzle It only took a few seconds to transfer the file to the cutter via USB cable. After that I loaded my mat with flexible magnetic material (letter sized at 12 mil thickness), used the scan mat feature, chose "Retrieve data" from the internal storage of my cutter, and spent a little more time tweaking things so that it fit edge-to-edge the borders of my print area. While I was ever so slightly skewed on the mat it really didn't matter in the end. I chose "test cut" before continuing with the cut. The Machine estimated 33 minutes to complete the cut. It was so cool to watch it at work. The shapes were a hair narrower than the edge of the printed area. A nice touch in my opinion. Once it was done I ejected the mat, pulled the "frame" of the magnet sheet away with ease, then spent the next 23 minutes with the spatula freeing large swaths of puzzle pieces off the mat. After that it took me 44 minutes to twist them loose into individual pieces. A couple more minutes to slide them into a resealable plastic bag I got off Uline. In all the process took 1 hour 42 minutes as my first trial run. If they were square cut pieces or perhaps a bit larger it might have taken less time. My next attempt will be after applying dual sided laminate using my Xyron 900 9 inch cold press machine. I had tried using the 20 mil thick printable magnet sheet in my laser printer but it jammed twice so I gave up on printing to those directly. I tried an older acid-free permanent adhesive cartridge from my Xyron but it developed a wrinkle in the two rolls which made my test print wrinkled as well. Bummer. But I went ahead to glue it onto the 20 mil thick magnet to test cut it but it wouldn't adhere to the mat and so now I have to order a high tac mat. With the printable magnet sheets I found the toner was rubbing off as I tried to press down on it to get better adhesion to the mat and as I was gently guiding it into the cutter. But by the time the cut was done I had no other issue with toner coming off while I twisted them loose.

[@DaleCapen]

does the sure cuts a lot 4 or 6 work on brother scan n cut sdx125e

[@Kidalski]

How do I find this now? I am so excited at this possibility