Puzzle Build Tray

Before You Slice

Check Your Bed

This will not fit a 220, 235 or 256 mm bed. Each panel is 243.4 × 254.0 mm flat, and its 5 mm brim ears take it out to 250.1 × 259.6 mm, so every plate needs a 260 × 260 mm bed. Open the print files against your own printer before you commit to six plates.

Before You Print

Will Your Puzzle Fit?

The pocket takes a finished puzzle up to 27 × 19-1/4 in. Measure the size printed on your box before you print anything — “1000 pieces” is a piece count, not a size, and the sizes are not close to each other.

Tested: Pinkey Puzzles “Spanish Ceiling”, 1000 pieces, 19 × 26-3/4 in. It fits with about 1/4 in to spare on each axis.

Tight: Buffalo, Cobble Hill and White Mountain 1000s are usually 19-1/4 × 26-5/8 in — flush on the short axis at best.

Too big: Ravensburger and Ceaco 1000s are usually 20 × 27 in, and Ravensburger’s European 50 × 70 cm is 19.7 × 27.6 in. Neither of those fits.

What Makes It Work

Prints In Pieces, Works As One

Everything about it is aimed at one job: keeping a half-built puzzle flat, together and in the tray while it moves.

A 27 × 19-1/4 in Pocket

685.8 × 488.95 mm, inner wall to inner wall. That is the usable building area, not an outside dimension you have to subtract a rim from. The outer footprint is 694.9 × 498.1 mm (27.36 × 19.61 in), which is how much table it needs.

Six Interlocking Panels

Three wide by two tall, joined on jigsaw-style tabs that straddle every seam. The panels key into each other, so the floor stays flat and the seams do not creep apart while you work over them.

A Rim That Catches Pieces

A 4.57 mm wall runs the whole way around, so a nudged piece stops at the edge instead of going on the carpet.

Pairs With The Sorting Trays

My stackable Puzzle Trays, a separate free model, hold edge pieces and color groups beside the build tray while you work. Stack them when you pack up and the sorted piles go to the shelf with the half-built puzzle, so nothing gets re-sorted next session.

Print Settings

Slice It Right

These are the settings the reference tray was printed with, on a Creality Hi with a 0.4 mm nozzle. The 3MF carries the full profile — open it in Creality Print or any slicer that reads 3MF projects and it is ready to go.

It is a big print: 45 h 59 m and 1230.20 g across the six plates, 412.47 m of filament, roughly $36.90 in material. The longest plate is 7 h 55 m and the heaviest panel is 211.82 g.

Print the panels flat, floor down, in PLA. Nothing here carries load; the tray only has to stay flat.

Print all six, and mind which is which — they are six distinct parts (top and bottom, left, center and right), not one panel printed six times.

Supports

None

Layer Height

0.12 mm

Walls

4

Top / Bottom

5 / 3

Infill

15% Gyroid

Brim

5 mm ears

Material

PLA · 220 °C / 60 °C

Each Panel

243.4 × 254.0 mm · 260 mm bed