Game Board, p1

I've been wanting to make a scroll-sawn chess set for a while. Since I got a book on how to do just that for Christmas, I did some planning and came up with plans for a full game board and set.

The board for checkers, chess, and othello are all the same size, so it makes sense to me to use the same board for all three. The board will be mounted in a box-like frame with drawers to hold the pieces.

The board itself will be 2" squares, making the board 16x16. This number was come to based on the chess pieces being 1 1/2" at the base. The board will be bocote, a Central American rosewood, and some other white wood, either maple or basswood. Right now, I'm leaning towards basswood because it has very little discernible grain. Bocote is very pronounced, so the basswood won't compete with it at all. Maple would be pretty grainless as well, so I'm currently torn.

The chess set itself is likewise only half decided. The dark pieces will be sapele. I'm also considering basswood or maple for the light set, but if something else presents itself I'm totally open to it.

The checkers and othello sets will be +/- 1 1/2" disks. To make these, I got a hole/circle cutter from Woodcraft. Because the pieces the disks are being gut from needed to me clamped down, a jig was needed.





1/4" MDF, #8 machine screws, and a few washers & wing nuts make everything line up and clamp down pretty nicely.

The checkers set will be oak & bloodwood. The oak will be ebonized, so I'll have the traditional red & black set. I'll explain how to turn the oak black when the time comes. These two woods seemed like the obvious choice to me.

The othello set was a little trickier to come up with. First, the pieces needed to be double sided, which means gluing two woods together to make the blanks. The only decision is which two woods? Traditionally, othello is black & white. I didn't feel it really mattered which two woods were used. Were one dark, the other is light. If one is heavily grained, the other is plain. In the end, I chose zebrawood and paduk. The colors are different, the grains are opposite, and I had enough on hand to make enough blanks. I think having enough on hand had more to do with the choice than anything, but that's what happens.

Over the next few days, I'll be cutting the checkers & othello pieces and finishing them up. I can't start the chess pieces until I get the scroll saw back from the shop, and I can't do the board until I get some bocote, which I'll get when I pick up the saw. And that is why woodworkers have a number of projects going on at the same time.