MDF chess boards

A while back I was taking my weekly spin around the thrift stores and came across something very interesting.  It was the pieces to an incomplete multi-game setup.  Originally used for Table Tennis.  But on the reverse side there were chess and backgammon boards.

The chess board was very large, and for only 5 bucks for the whole set I said "Why not?", and picked it up. 

Now, later I got my 4.8" chess set in the mail by accident, and I needed a board.  This large board came in very handy for playing with such large pieces.  After playing a few games I decided to saw off the sides to make it a bit more convenient to move around, and this is what I have now:

The squares are 3" each, for an overall size of 24".  This has turned out to be a very nice board.  It lays completely flat, the squares are perfectly square, and it is solid wood (albeit 1/4" fiberwood) so it makes some nice sound when you place a piece with authority.  And the surface is extremely slick.  Silently moving felted pieces can be accomplished with a fingertip.

But thing is, it's still a little too big.  And the red and black color scheme is a little hard on the eyes after a while.  I would really like to buy something slightly smaller and with a more reserved color scheme, preferably green/buff or brown/buff. 

Google hasn't turned up much.  Chess Bazaar has a product, but the price is far more than I am looking to pay for what amounts to a piece of MDF and a vinyl overlay. Any help?  I am thinking of possibly buying my own sheet of fiberwood from Lowe's and printing out a big sticker online. But from where?

I recently rediscovered a board a brother gave me years ago that is made of 3/4" MDF covered in Formica, or something similar to Formica. It's got a two-tone grey scheme and is quite heavy because of the 3/4" MDF. It makes a nice playing board but the squares are only 2". It looks like it took a bit of work to size, cut and place the squares but something like that could work.

Maybe you could just glue a large vinyl board onto a painted piece of fiberwood or something. I've seen vinyl boards with up to 3" squares so you should be able to find one that fits.

I've thought about doing something like that Gomer.  Formica saws pretty cleanly, so one could source some old countertops or tables or something like that and saw them up into strips and follow the same steps used by The Wood Guy here:

http://youtu.be/RUKPs7lrucQ

The end result should be a very tough, very smooth and nice looking chess board. 

Also, any photos of your board?

And yes I have also thought about buying a 2.75" vinyl roll-up chess board and using some kind of spray adhesive to attach it to a piece of MDF or presswood followed by using trim to cover the edges. 

Here's a couple shots I just took. It's nothing fancy but the surface is nice and the colors are easy on the eyes. I don't have a set that fits it but I do have a plan. I have the working guts from an old Fidelity chess computer but the sensory board died. I plan to rig membrane sensors onto this board and cover them with a vinyl board. Then wire it into the guts and I have a thirty year old Frankenstein monster of a chess game.