Homemade Chess Board

Great-looking board!   Thanks for the step-by-step instructions on that - looks like a fun project!

That's an amazing looking board!

Not at all.

I guess what I'm getting at in all of this is that my own son never really took any interest in working wood, so I never had the pleasure of delighting in his accomplishments in this area.  Instead, I'm delighting in yours.  I'm glad to see somebody from your generation picked up this particular torch.  These skills are almost a lost art.

That is an awesome homemade board.  If I had any woodworking tools at all (not to mention a little more skill), I'd try making one myself.  I haven't really done much woodworking since high school.

I never really took an interest in it until I got a little older. I'm sure it helps that I like doing some things that can be done alone though. The way I look at it, is that it is one of the hobbies and skills that I can use when I get my own home. Thanks for all the compliments everyone! I might try a little nicer one some time too - with drawers and everything. If/when I do, I'll put up pictures.

what are the dimensions of each board you used??

Very nice work!

Sorry for the delayed reply everyone. This was a busy year at school for me and only got to play a few games with minimal chess.com time. haha. Thanks Frenquis!! mlew, what do you mean the dimensions of each board? They were originally something like 3/4" thickness with varying widths and lengths. I just cut them to size, I can't remember exactly the thicknesses I wanted at the time. I believe it was like 1.5" squares was what I wanted so I cut 4 maple and 4 walnut strips at 1.5" (if that was the size of squares I wanted, so however big you want your squares). But I made sure to have the strips longer than I needed to allow for the "sniping" from the planer I use. Also, just in case I screwed up a spot of two. Then glued them all together alternating woods, so I just had a stripe pattern at first. Then cut perpendicular to the stripes created at the same width that you cut for the square size (so in my case it was 1.5", but cut the same width as whatever your original strip width was or else youll have rectangles that don't match up)! Then just flip every other strip to get the chess board/checker pattern, glue again, then add a border if you wish and glue again and your done!

If I did it again, I would glue in incriments of two, then glue two of those together so you have 4 total together, then glue those last two (now halves) together. I think having glued so many together at a whack (I did 4 at a time) it caused them to get a slight bow in it (even with alternating clamps on both sides). So I had to plane quite a bit after I had the stripe pattern to get a flat surface again. It was a learning process for me, and if I were to make another one, I would know what I need to change to make an even better board. I am happy with this as my first chess board though! Good luck on your future projects!

Great job! It would be great if you could manage to use it in a tournament.

Very impressive, I've been meaning to try something like that, I oubt I would ever achieve that quality.

Thanks!! It would be cool to use in a tournament, I almost started a chess club at school then I could have just used it there! haha. I did carry it to the tutors at my school on the top floor of the library (I got a few weird looks and some people who knew me were asking if it is the one I made because I told some friends about it). Anyway, we played during breaks when we would be studying. It was my first and there are a few flaws in it, but I'm still happy with the way it turned out for my first project of the sort.

That's a top board. I particularly like the maple line of trim inside the walnut outer edging. It finishes it off in a very professional and pleasing to the eye manner. Great work.

Mark, Thanks for the tip! I'll keep that in mind if/when I do make another board. There seems to always be a learning curve with first time projects.


Waynet, thank you too! I noticed when I put pieces of walnut for the border next to the loose board, the colors kind of bled together. So I did what I could to break it up.

wow simply amazing!

made this wanted a different look plus storage for chess and checkers pieces