Pithstudios Folding Chessboard

Hey guys, a while back I saw someone else's folding chessboard here and got in touch with Zach at Pith Studios to make one for me, with a couple of customizations. I got photos of the board last night.

Overall it came out really good I think - However the one kind of unfortunate thing I see is on the D7 square, you can see the way the wood grain came thru there must have been a branch coming out right where there. My eye was immediately drawn to it, like zit on someone's nose.

I haven't taken possession of the board yet. As it was custom I'm a little miffed that there was no communication between the initial order agreement and the completion of the board. I'd think at the very least a couple photos of both sides of the board before a playing side was chosen would have been good.

At any rate, I do want a nice folding board, I like the design. I guess I just wanted to see what you guys thought about it. Am I going a little OCD here?

I also contracted Zach as a result of the same thread you read. I asked him to make me a box. The box came out excellent. There were some small issues but none that bothered me.

I am very OCD as well. The d7 square bothers me. I would not be happy with it. However, I always have to remember my OCD and sometimes consider what others think to see if I am completely off here. @Theendgame3 makes a good point. The board is beautiful as-is. The question is whether it will bother you or not moving forward.

Thanks for the perspectives.  I think it's just going to be something I'll accept as I use it.  Clearly I'd prefer that the D7 square was more uniform but it's not like Zach can remove the square and replace it or just scrap the board and redo it.

Outside of this one square though, I really like the rest of the board.  It's just a shame no communication happened during the build process where I could have addressed it before it was finished.

@tkrynsky Damn. How does the grain on the bottom of the board look? If it looks better, maybe Zach can reverse the hinges and flip the inside with the outside? That's the beauty of a solid wood board. You have two sides. I don't know how those hidden hinges work though. Whether it's easy or not to do. And the black/white border markers will be on the "bad side". Not sure how much of a pain it is to add additional black/white markers on the reverse side now that the board is finished. And of course there's the cost of shipping the board back and forth again. So there are some "extreme" options available if you can't live with it.

Yeah, I mentioned that.  One thing that isn't very visible in the photos is that there is a slight bevel on the edge of the "playing" side so it's not quite flat.

I haven't taken delivery of the board, it's still with Zach.  I may lay out some of these questions before taking the board.  I suppose I could also just play on the other side regardless of how it opens up. (I haven't seen pictures of the other side, so I'm not 100% sure if the grain looks better there)