Small wood pieces help!

[rmielson]

Hello!

I am planning on making a 16"w x 8"h x 8"d chest for my fiance as a cute little gift. I am trying to give it an "8bit" look, with having different colors throughout the chest. I will attach a photo of what someone has done in the past. Basically these little tiles will make up the faces of the chest, then just have a border going on each side. How would I go about making these "tiles"? I have measured them to be 1/2" width and height, but the depth might need to be 1/2" or even 1/4". Is that too thin to cut without losing the quality of the shape cut? Let me know if I am not making any sense! 

Thanks!

[Barron]

I can't say for sure, but I think the squares are thin veneer glued to plywood or mdf, or even solid wood.  The dark wood trim hides the plywood/veneer edges.  At least that is how I would go.

[Coop]

As my veneering leaves a lot to be desired, I would plane pieces to 1/8" on so, rip your wood to the desired width, then using a stop block cross cut them into squares, then glue them to your box.

[wtnhighlander]

That box is obviously face grain, but an end grain cutting board technique may work as well.

[RDavS]

If you want a random pattern you'll probably have to apply each piece one at a time. If you don't mind some regularity, you might consider the technique some use to make checkerboards, but use more than two colors of wood. With either veneers pre-glued to backing or solid pieces of wood, rip enough pieces of wood so that their combined width exceeds the width of your box (with or without border). The wider you go at this stage, the more flexibility you'll have in the next step. Make sure that the length is greater (at least approximately 1/8" for every piece in the side to allow for saw kerf in the next step). Arrange the various woods either in a regular repeating sequence or randomly, and glue them together as a complete panel. When fully dry, turn the panel 90 degrees and cross cut strips exactly the same width as your original rip. Glue these new strips up as a panel, but offset and/or reverse the wood colors. Make sure the glue seams of one strip align with the glue seams of the next piece. The wider you made your first panel the more options you'll have in arranging the wood colors. This second panel will have parallel sides, but ends that are very uneven. When dry those uneven ends can be squared off. (In gluing up your panels, depending on what tools you have, you might have to glue pieces two at time instead of all at once. It will probably be easier to keep glue seams aligned by gluing two at a time.)