Large-format jigsaws are the work of years for Fort

THE HAWK EYE
Craig T. Neises, features editor
(319) 758-8148 or 1-800-397-1708
FAX (319)-754-6824
e-mail: [email protected]
www.thehawkeye.com/lifestyles
LIFESTYLES
Section
C
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Burlington, Iowa
Piece by piece
John Gaines/The Hawk Eye
At more than 9 feet wide and 6 feet tall, this 18,240-piece puzzle featuring four historical world maps, now hangs in Leroy Knoch’s bedroom at his Fort Madison home. The puzzle, which he started in
2007, was finished and hung in March. It is one of several large-format puzzles Knoch has completed over the years.
THE PUZZLER
Large-format jigsaws are the work
of years for Fort Madison man.
By CRAIG T. NEISES
[email protected]
FORT MADISON — If Leroy Knoch keeps putting together puzzles and hanging them up, he is going to need a bigger house.
Tucked in a back corner of the basement, too big to come
upstairs, is a reproduction of a 16th-century painting that depicts
construction of the Tower of Babel.
A replica of Michaelangelo’s
fresco, the Creation of Adam,
“It takes a lot of
from the ceiling of the Sistine
concentration. You’ve Chapel in Rome, hangs above
bed in one room. And domigot to be able to enjoy the
nating the entire wall of another
is the most recent addition: An
it.”
18,240-piece puzzle featuring
maps from the Age of ExploraLeroy Knoch
tion that weighed 40 pounds in
the box and took about 1,500
hours across more than six years to complete.
Space for more is at a premium, and just one more large wall
remains in Knoch’s Avenue L home. But Susie Knoch, his wife of 49
years, has drawn a line at taking down family pictures to make way
for the hanging of another of her husband’s large-format puzzles.
“I can’t have that one,” Leroy Knoch said.
So the 9,000-piece puzzle depicting the wedding feast at Cana,
where the Bible says Jesus turned water into wine, is going to have
to find a home someplace else.
“She wants me to donate it to a church,” Leroy Knoch said.
For now, though, the new puzzle remains in the box and probably
will till the fall. Knoch, who at 69 is retired from 50 years at a local
scrap metal yard, is taking a well-earned break from puzzling.
Knoch’s interest in building puzzles grew out of a forced slowdown that followed a 1991 bout with congestive heart failure. Needing something to keep himself occupied, he first got into woodworking, using a scroll saw to cut intricate patterns in wood for clocks,
toys and other things.
The work was good therapy and a way to make some money on
weekends.
It was during that time when Knoch’s son, Fred, bought him a
1,000-piece puzzle. A year later, for Christmas in 1997, the 9,000piece Tower of Babel puzzle was presented as a gift.
“I put it together in less than a year,” Knoch said.
While he was working on that one, Susie Knoch found out where
John Gaines/The Hawk Eye
Knoch, who is retired from 50 years at Feinberg Metals Recycling in Fort Madison, builds his puzzles at a work table in
the basement of his home. Behind him, against the wall, is a
9,000-piece puzzle depicting the construction of the Tower of
See Puzzles page 7C Babel, based on a 16th-century painting.
John Gaines/The Hawk Eye
Knoch soon will tackle his next 9,000-piece puzzle, a depiction of the wedding feast at Cana,
where the Bible says Jesus turned water into wine. The puzzle pieces come in two bags of 4,500
pieces each, one containing the left half of the puzzle and one containing the right half.
John Gaines/The Hawk Eye
After discovering only after it was finished his Tower of Babel puzzle was too big to remove from
the basement once it was mounted to a frame, Knoch mounted the 12,000-piece Creation of
Adam in three frames.
On the Inside
• Eye on the Arts
• Family album
See page 2C
• Around Burlington
See page 2C
• Up & Out
See page 6C
• Baby’s names
• School lunch menus
See page 9C
• Up & Out planner
See page 6C
See page 9C
See page 9C
• 52 Faces: Bellrichard
finds the best fishing is
at home.
See page 4C

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