custom Made Chessboard

Hi Frank what's the dark square in that board you are awaiting lovely? FrankHelwig wrote:

Giampo wrote:

I was wondering if anybody in here had custom made Chessboard. I was thinking to have one made but wondering if it would be more expensive compared to the ones already made for sale

I have a custom made board, built by customchess.com If you're referring to luxury boards using exotic hardwoods, you will probably get a better deal having it custom-made vs buying one already built, since you don't have to go through a retailer but you can deal directly with the guy building the board. In additiona, you can design the board and select the wood exactly the way you want it. On the other hand, you'll have to wait for the board to be built, and you possibly won't have the quality assurance you'd expect to get from a retailer like HoS, and you'd have to trust the maker if things go wrong.

In general, though, I'd recommend sticking w/ basic veneer boards rather than buying luxury hardwood chess boards. I'd rather put money into pieces, and prefer a plain board, which is less distracting when playing a game.

Here's the board (w/ a club-size vintage Jaques):

And here's another one I had custom-built that broke during shipping:

Here's what it looked like when it arrived and I opened up the packaging:

And despite my advise to the contrary, I couldn't resist the temptation and just recently bought another one, which is currently being made. If all goes well, it will look like this once finished:

it's Padauk in all 3 boards (the first one is older, and the Padauk has already darkened a bit there...)

I bought this customchess.com board off ebay a few years ago. The workmanship is excellent. One thing to keep in mind is that these type boards are big and heavy. You won't want to carry them around much.
http://www.customchess.com/boards/board006/board006.asp

A custom board like that is nice but I don't have a permanent location for it so I spend most of my time on simpler, more mobile boards.

Old thread I Know but perfect for what I want to ask. I always liked the grains of the wood running horizontal both color squares. I noticed in Franks last board the light run horizontal and the dark vertical.  I also noticed in Lou's board they both run horizontal like my very old Druke. 

Do most of the people on here care, or does it not matter to you?

I'm with you Mike!

Mike, I prefer grain running across the board (horizontally). It just looks right to my eye (and to my left eye too). YMMV.

Only thing I care about is that they both run in the same direction.

I don't like the vertical wood grain on a Chess Board. As Lou said, I like the horizontal wood grain better.

Yeah, it's a very versatile board. I use it with four different sets with dark pieces of ebony, rosewood, padauk, and red sandalwood. And it looks great with all four.

There's a lot of buzz in the custom chess board market around mtmwood.com. They are a bit pricey but the quality looks impeccable.