All packed up

I am kinda sad. This is the first time since January that double retrospect has not been on the table or in progress. I ended up breaking section A into 16 even parts and making a box to hold the assembled sections securely and then packed them in the original box.

It's funny to me how much energy it took to covert the bag of pieces into that neat stack. Entropy is going to fight all that energy I put into it. I must do my best to protect it!

It took nearly 80 hours to convert that bag of pieces into a nice neat stack of sections.

Failed attempt to store the pieces in the bottom of the box. I realized I just needed to break it down further and store all the sections in one neat stack (above). 

First section of double retrospect done!

We finished the first of 8 sections today! Total time for assembly is about 80 hours as predicted. The next section should be about 70 hours now that we have one set to use as a guide for assembly. The trick to this puzzle is to use the repeating pattern of shapes. Each individual artwork is roughly 1000 pieces and in this photo the top left we will calle A-1, top right is A-2, bottom left is A-3 and finally A-4. The way the puzzle is cut, A-1 is the master, A-2 is a duplicate of A-1 and A-3 and A-4 are orientated upside down of A-1. This is a bit confusing, but the point is, there is really only 1 roughly 1000 piece die used to make the puzzle so you can use this bit of info to make your life a lot easier!

We wont start the next sections until we get to St Thomas! I figured I would leave this assembled for overnight before I pack it up for shipping!

-Cheers

Section "A" completed

1 down, 7 to go!

Yellow complete!!!

Making good progress on Double Retrospect. I finished yellow today and that leaves just red to complete the first section!

Changes

Mercedes finished image A-2! Way to go wife! I will be home in a week to help with the other two before we move!

66 hours of Double Retrospect

I finished the first of 32 images! This feels great and I feel like I am on schedule to finish orange and the second image in a about 2-3 more hours (The closer to finishing a color the faster it goes). I really would like to be done with that color before I leave for Seattle leaving on red and yellow to finish section A.

Double Retrospect after 66 hours

Section A-3

Section A-2

Section A-4

Section A-1

Blue Completed

I finished blue tonight on Double Retrospect Section "A". My next color is orange and that will complete images 2 and 3. Total time to date 60hr.

My guess is that I have no more than 30 hours left but more likely 24. So this would put the estimated time to complete the entire puzzle at 84x8 = 672 hours. This would be equivalent to working a full time job for nearly 17 weeks.

My puzzling rate for this puzzle is roughly 48 placements an hour which is about half of my normal rate of 100pieces an hour. 

Blue completed in section "A"

Double retrospect progress

55 hours of work to date. Spent 4 hours last night sorting blue and finishing the floor of Section "A-4" and a bit of the double man in section "A-2". I had hoped to finish blue last night, but hopefully tonight.

All of the blue pieces sorted for section "A"

Showing how the puzzle has two identical pieces per section, so you can use the adjacent column to help you find the correct piece. Here I had already completed pink in Section "A" Image 3 so I could use it to help find the blue in Image 4.

The blue floor of Section"A" image 4 completed.

Starting the double man in Section "A-2"

Tom needs an intervention

Double Retrospect Progress Report

Last night I finished pink in section "A" while M finished our first Venice puzzle and started the vintage Lighthouse 500pc from Clementoni. It took about 5 hours to do the pink in total. I feel like I have found the "tricks" to completing this puzzle.

We ended up puzzling until 2:30 in the morning and getting pretty punch drunk on lack of sleep. I really love staying up late and puzzling at the table with M. We end up making fun or each other and laughing ourselves silly. Apparently, I do this thing where I place three fingers on the puzzle while I hunt. M calls it my puzzle hug!

Since this is our first blog, here are the progress photos to date!

The puzzle arrives!

This is what 32000pcs look like! We are gonna need a bigger  table. M is in the background, she is thinking, fuck this puzzle!

Starting the sort of section "A"

Time for a beer

Sorted!

SO MANY PIECES

The army of white pieces. The section in foreground is 500 pure white pieces to search through of  "standard" pieces (2 out 2 in tabs). I soon seperated these into horizontal and vertical pieces effectively cutting the search space in half! Very helpful tool to solving this puzzle!

Progress! The puzzle repeats itself. It is cut as 1 picture wide and two pictures tall and then all pieces repeat. Therefore, each section has exactly two identical pieces. This makes it easy because shen you fine once piece , you can easily find its partner while doing the border and double your efforts! once i discovered this, it goes much faster!

I quick message to M!

Section "A" frame completed! Now I can break the frame onto the much more manageable puzzle boards and get  the table back!

Green Completed!

Green Completed!

Green and Pink Completed