About Us

Our Story

In the late 1970s, my dad spotted a beat-up old rocking chair at an auction in Hartsville, Tennessee. It was falling apart. But something about it caught his eye — it was made entirely of interlocking pieces. No nails. No screws. No glue. He bought it for $5.

He set up a small woodshop in his garage and started making his own version to sell at local venues. He had some success along the way, but life and career have a way of overriding time in the shop. Eventually the sawdust settled and the tools went quiet.

Then I picked it up in my twenties. I gave away more than I sold but loved every minute of it — especially watching people's reactions when they realized the rocker was just as much a puzzle as it was a fully functional chair strong enough to hold a grown man.

Fast forward to 2020. I was managing custodial crews keeping 25 schools open during COVID — one of the only school systems in the country that never shut down. By the end of that school year I was completely burnt out. I quit my job, went home, and spent the next 14 months in my woodshop. I needed to make something with my hands again.

I started making full-size rockers like we always had. Then on a whim I reached out to a YouTuber in Prague with 2.5 million subscribers who specializes in puzzles. I figured he'd never respond. He did. He loved the rocker but said it was too big and too expensive to ship to Europe.

The next day I came back with a new idea — what if I sent him a smaller replica instead? He was open to it. The only problem was it didn't exist yet.

It took me two more years of trial and error, teaching myself CNC programming from scratch, to machine something precise enough to work as a kit. Last fall I finally sent it to him. He never made a video. Honestly? It doesn't matter. That one exchange pushed me to learn a completely new skill and take a 50-year family heirloom in a direction my dad had always imagined — he was already cutting the miniature by hand on his table saw decades ago, fingers and all. The CNC just made it repeatable, precise, and considerably safer.

My dad is 88 years old now. He and I made the assembly video together — him working on a mini he cut out 40 years ago, me working on one fresh off my CNC. Same puzzle. Two generations. One workbench.

The Puzzle Rocker Kit is the result of all of it. A 50-year family obsession, a $5 auction find, a pandemic, a rejection from Prague, and a whole lot of hickory sawdust.

We're glad it found its way to you.

From our family to yours, Bill Foster Tennessee Puzzle Rocker Woodworker. Puzzle maker. Occasional pitmaster.