chess board vaneering

[hazel]

anyone ever made a chess board?


I am doing a chess set and want to make a board to go with it, I had concidered basically glueing strips of contrasting wood together then cross cutting and turning every other peice (I may have described that badly... but sure people can figure it out as seems fairly obvious way of doing it) but I've decideed that would need a lot of wood... so my new idea is vaneers, I own some vaneer already but have very limited experiance of actually vaneering things. My main bit of wondering is what would be best to use as a sort of base for the board, I was thinking ply but wondered if anything else would be more suited? Also is bowing a potential issue? If so any ways I can mitigate this?

And any other advice/suggestions that you have would also be welcome


and I am also just curious as to if others have made a chess board/set and how it turned out etc as I like to see and hear about other peoples work and learn from what they have found out

 

[Jacob]

I haven't made one but the plan was to use a solid piece of sycamore or anything light, and set in squares of darker wood veneer

 

[hazel]

that's a thought...

my thinking had been to use a vaneer for every square (as I own some black walnut and some zebrano so have both dark and light covered), but just vaneering the darker squares might be easier!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I inlaid one years ago - it was an Indian coffee table with carved elephants for legs, I can't remember what the wood is but it's straw coloured. I used padauk iirc for the inlaid dark squares, the table's about 3' x 2', the board's about 16"sq. Only the dark is inlaid, the light is part of the table top. I marked the squares with a knife very, very carefully, and took the waste out with a small router chiselling the corners. The squares were about 4mm thick. It is very effective.
The normal way with strips is four white, four black, allowing length enough to cut and plane when cut into strips the crosswise, glue up, mark across the strips leaving space for sawing and when sawn and cleaned up, reverse every second one end over end and glue up again.
If you use a wood that has a pronounced stripey grain, it might appear a good idea, but it will create an optical illusion that the squares are wider than they are long - so a plainer wood may be better. Damhikt. If turning pieces it is wise to do the softer wood first, or it is likely that the softer wood ones when finished will turn out slightly smaller, unless you're good enough to leave them from the tool.

 

[hazel]

If you use a wood that has a pronounced stripey grain, it might appear a good idea, but it will create an optical illusion that the squares are wider than they are long - so a plainer wood may be better.

that had crossed my mind as a possibility but wasn't sure if it was a real concern or just me imagining issues that may not be there...


for now I may attempt to do one with only the dark sqaures inlayed. Will try one with both once I gain a more appropriate light vaneer.

 

[Sheffield Tony]

I once made one, in school woodwork class. It was so much fun that I've not made another in the ~30 years since :lol:

I used mahogany, and some other whitish unidentified veneer. Cut 4 strips of each. taped them together in an altenating pattern, cut crosswise into eight again, then flipped every other strip, taped them back together into a chessboard pattern sheet then glued down with boiled up animal hide glue. It was my first go with both veneering and hide glue, and I had a lot to learn. Biggest problem was stopping the veneer from instantly rolling up on hitting the hot, moist glue.

I used a piece of chipboard for the substrate, no movement problems - it is flat, and still looks as it did when I made it.

Another guy made one, and having seen the palaver I got into, he used squares of thin plywood and PVA. Looked alright really.

 

[marcros]

If i was doing one, i would do it as tony suggested. The hammer veneering that i have done, i havent had an issue with curling. put some more glue on top, and have an iron handy. Liquid hide glue may be a bit less hassle if you dont have a glue pot- never used it so cant really comment with authority. It would be easier than individual squares though.

 

[disco_monkey79]

I seem to recall Hobby's magazine (years ago) selling kits for making chess boards. Might be a good place to start?

Unless they've stopped selling them. ;-)