My covid project was a 5000 pieces puzzle of the capilla sixtina. The first two pieces was God's finger touching its creation... but that was pure luck. Anyway, I couldn't get the borders till the very end.
Side note for the entusiast, a 5000 pieces puzzle means that a ~16 m2 room will be unusable for 6 to 18 months. It's a pretty fulfilling journey
Is there some special type of 5000 piece enthusiast puzzle I haven't heard of? A regular 5000 piece puzzle should take up one large table with a little spillover depending on style and like 50 hours of total work, so easily a month tops. I can't imagine anyone taking 18 months.
You mean Delacroix's liberty leading the people? I envy you, that's a hell of a masterpiece for a puzzle. I glued my capella sistina to an MDF plate and hanged it on the wall and it really stills all the views.
My advice, wait till the right moment comes...it can get terribly frustrating at times and it's a pretty long work. Make sure to have a big plain surface to work, keep rumba under strict control and start with the boob pop'n out, so you know what are you fighting for.
The "normal" way of starting a puzzle is to start with the edges. You can find the edge pieces easier due to the flat side, which makes it a good place to start when you have many pieces.
You have to spread all the pieces out when you get them out of the box, so it makes sense to separate out the edge pieces while you're spreading and flipping pieces.
i have more puzzles than i can count, and many 5k. i've never run into edge collisions that numbers so many it couldnt be resolved with other edge pieces. maybe ive just been lucky, but 'edge piece collisions' arent really an issue
i always do edges first to get an idea of dimensions, sorting all by temperature/texture/pattern (if plausible) next
The thing is if you start with a frame it takes up more space, and it's more difficult to move finished portions unside. Without the constraints of the frame you are free to position your portions where you want before merging.
Okay so in reality you don't complete the entire frame before starting anything else. It may be 90% complete after initial sorting and flipping of pieces, so there are gaps in the border through which you can move finished portions.
Additionally, I would typically keep most of the unsorted pieces outside the frame and then build portions inside the frame.