Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

After trying the much cheaper, but utterly useless Puzzle Storage for Upto 1000 Pieces I decided to give Jigthings' Jigsort for 1000 pieces a try. With a price-tag of $95, I was hesitant to make such an expensive purchase, but the jigsort promised to be the answer to all of my puzzling problems and, having heard good things about the customer service offered by Jigsort (the company that sell this item and many other puzzle-related products through Amazon) I felt reasonably assured that if I wasn't completely happy with my purchase, I would at least be able to return it without too much hassle. After ordering my jigsort, it was shipped out by Jigthings the very next day, and was delivered to me via UPS three days later. The item came well packaged and I unwrapped it eagerly. I must say that I was immediately very happy with my purchase. I was concerned that despite the expensive price-tag, this product might be cheaply made. But, not at all! The Jigsort is sturdy and very well made. I was very impressed with the level of quality and thought that went into its design. It looks rather nice, too. I was predominantly interested in this product because it includes a "jigboard", which is basically a large piece of wood covered in fabric that has a shallow "lip" around the edge. Both the fabric cover and the raised lip are intended to prevent puzzle pieces from sliding over the edge of the board, and they both work EXTREMELY well in doing so. Of the six 500 piece puzzles I have completed on this board so far, the only jigsaw pieces that have ended up on the floor are ones that I have dropped or that were caught up in my sweater sleeve; neither of which are instances that I feel the jigboard should be faulted for. The fabric covering of the jigboard is easy to work with. I was worried it would "snag" on the puzzle pieces and make them difficult to handle; but that's actually not the case at all. I can still very easily slide my puzzle pieces into place and pick them up as I wish. The fabric covering offers just enough "grip" to the pieces to prevent them being blown out of position by a breeze, or a slight knock to the board. The lip is just the right height - it doesn't get in the way of me working on my jigsaw puzzles, but still manages to stop the pieces from spilling over the edge. When you've finished working on your jigsaw for the time being, the jigboard comes with a sheet which you can place over the incomplete puzzle to protect it and further prevent pieces from being dislodged. The sheet is quite light-weight, with a smooth black "top" and a light, spongy underside that lays against the pieces. I was skeptical at first when I placed the sheet over my jigsaw, as I feared that when I lifted it off, all the pieces might slide or "lift" with it. But again - this is not the case at all. When I lift the sheet off to resume work on my puzzle, all the pieces are pretty much in exactly the same position that I left them in. Also worthy of note is the fact that the jigboard is excellent at preventing cats from messing up your puzzles too badly. My cat LOVES it when I'm working on a jigsaw puzzle. She likes to stalk all over the jigboard and bat at the jigsaw pieces with her paws. Whilst the jigboard certainly can't prevent my cat's love of jigsaw puzzles, it DOES help to keep the trouble she causes to a minimum. Individual puzzle pieces are less likely to be knocked out of place when she stalks over them, and thanks to the raised edge of the jigboard, those that she does bat around at least don't end up being sent flying over the edge of the board and onto the floor. I really can't imagine working on a jigsaw puzzle WITHOUT the jigboard. The only criticism I do have about the jigboard is its size. Whilst the size of the board is recommended for 1,000 piece puzzles, I have been saddened to discover that many 1000 puzzles that I have looked into purchasing are too large for this board by barely an inch! This is really quite frustrating when the size difference is so tiny. Obviously, this product includes a case for you to store your jigsaw puzzle in when you don't want to leave it out - and I'll focus now on commenting on that. It is, regretfully, the case (and the slightly too-small size of the jigboard) that caused me to give this product 4 stars, instead of 5. The case is sturdily made and looks pretty nice. When I brought it, I had hoped to leave the jigboard inside the case and work on my jigsaws from there. But unfortunately the case's lid is just too big and heavy to be balanced against the wall behind the table, and kept falling down and hitting me on the head whilst I was working on a jigsaw. My table is too narrow for me to be able to set the case's lid down flat, so I had to remove the jigboard from the case and store the case elsewhere until I need it. In the two or three months that I've had my jigsort, I've had very little chance to use the actual case. My jigsaws have been quite safe on the table, and the protective sheet it comes with has allowed me to simply cover them up and keep them safe and protected when not in use. If I need to use the table space for other things, I just cover the jigsaw with the sheet and work on top of the jigboard. It's very convenient and saves a lot of trouble trying to get the board into the case. Due to the large size of board and case, it'd be quite difficult to transfer the board into the case. But I cannot fault the jigboard or case for this - most 1,000 pieces jigsaws are simply just very large! The biggest letdown to this product, however, is the four sort trays. These have simply proven so unpractical that I tried them once, quickly gave up, and have never used them since. The sort trays are basically thin, fabric-covered sheets which feature a design that lets you slide a "lid" over the top of the sheets when you want to store them. My problem with them is that there just isn't enough of a "lip" between sheet and cover, and so I found it really hard to "slide" the lid in place. (If you have a jigsaw with particularly thick puzzle pieces, this is especially difficult.) In the process of doing so, I'd often knock my jigsaw pieces out of place. A further problem I found was that the sort trays were too large. They were just too big to lay on the jigboard itself, so I had to set them on the table beside the board. Unfortunately, there simply isn't room on the table for me to place more than one sort tray beside the board. In the end, I brought some 16oz ziploc boxes from my local grocery store, and now I use them. When I'm working on my puzzles, I spread the pieces out on the jigboard, then sort them depending on which area of the puzzle they are from, and place each set of pieces in a different container, which I set aside until I'm ready to work on that particular part. Then, I spread out the pieces from the part of the jigsaw's image I want to work on, and complete them on the jigboard. This works quite well for me. But I was sorry that the sort trays included with the jigsort itself weren't particularly useful. In conclusion then, I give this product a 4 out of 5 stars. It's a great product, and I'm happy with it. But sometimes I wonder whether I should have just brought a JIGBOARD. Individual jigboards can be brought without the case for $45, and considering I've barely used my case since I brought it, I'd probably have considered it much better value to buy the board alone. The only thing I'm not sure of is whether the individual jigboard includes the protective top sheet. I found this particular aspect to be irreplaceable and extremely useful. In time, I guess the case will certainly come in useful. It's certainly nice to have the case around in case I do ever want to store my incomplete jigsaws away for a time, but in all honesty, if that were the case, I'd probably be putting it back in the case because I expected to leave it there long-term, and in which case, I may just as well have been happy to try putting the incomplete jigsaw back into the box in as much of a partially completed condition as I could manage.