The grand nieces & nephews

[Ronn W]

While visiting family recently I learned that my grand neices and nephews - (3 families) like to play chess with each other.  So I have 3 chess boards on the bench.  Curly maple and ebony squares with black-curly maple- black band along the sides ( 1/2" wide) and 1 1/4" solid walnut or cherry frames.  No, I am not up to making the chess pieces.

[treeslayer]

Looking forward to this one Ronn, be sure to post pictures, I just received a request to make one for my grandson a couple of days ago, and I also will not be making the pieces, I think

[wtnhighlander]

Maybe you could farm the pieces out to @Mark J. He seems handy with a lathe! 

[Ronn W]

Screwed up/  I miscalcuated the thickness of the chess board compared to the thickness of the walnut frame.  Could not level the whole thing without sanding/scraping throught the veneer inlay on the frame.  Not much room for error with thin commercial veneer.  Rather than start over completely, I successfully cut the frame off of all sides and will remake the frames.

Aarrgh!!!!

[wtnhighlander]

Ronn, you take any photos yet? I'm curious about the design that dictated this action.

[Ronn W]

On 2/6/2023 at 5:28 PM, wtnhighlander said:

Ronn, you take any photos yet? I'm curious about the design that dictated this action.

I will discuss the design and the problems that I ran into as soon as I solve the problem on these 3 chess boards.  Right now I think that my recommendation will be  - Do do it this way!

[Ronn W]

My process for making veneer chess board with solid wood frame:

 

The 64 squares is pretty straight forward.  Cut 5 strips of light wood the width of a square.  Cut 4 strips of dark wood.  Length of strips – about ½” to 1” longer than the width of 8 strips.   Tape the 9 strips together with blue tape on the back side  – light, dark, light, dark, etc with light strips first and last.  Apply veneer tape over the joints on the show side.  Let tape dry and then cut into strip perpendicular to the direction of the light-dark strips.  Lay out the checkerboard pattern – Now you can see why you needed 5 light strips in step one.   Tape the strips together with blue tape on the back side, flip over and veneer tape the show side.   Cut away the extra squares that will not be part of the 8x8 square board.Glue and press the veneer to a substrate – I used ½” MDF.  Substrate should be larger than the veneer.  Don’t forget that the back of the substrate needs veneer, too.

 

Now.  About the filletti boarder between the chess board and the wood frame. I know that the 64 squares, once glued to substrate would not be a perfect square.  And I knew that I would have to cut away the extra substrate (outside of the chess board).  So what were the chances that I if I installed the fillettl as a veneer part fo the board, that I could cut away the substrate right next to a 1/8” wide black filletti and still have a 1/8” wide filletti full length.  My thinking was that the odds were stacked against me on that.

 

So I decided to inlay the filletti into the boarder. See pics.  I realized ( after the substrate was trimmed to the chess squares and after I had cut the rabbets for the filletti In the frame pieces that I had still had the problem of  cutting a straight line next to the black filletti –  only now the problem was on the frame pieces.

 

To continue.  Commercial veneer is so thin that, when you glue the frame to the squares, the surface must be aligned nearly perfectly.  If you use dominos between the board and the frame, surface will align very well.  But, with my not- so-brilliant approach, I had 3 surfaces to align. The squares, the filletti and the frame.  My only suggestion is that you align the surfaces of the filletti and the squares and keep the frame slightly proud to be sanded down later.  You definetly want to sand/scrap the veneer, including the filletti as little as possible.

 

One my first try, I made the filletti, just proud of the frame and, by the time I got the whole surface level the filletti was gone.  Actually I made the filletti double thickness in aniticaption of this but The sanding exposed the glue line between layers and the white filletti turned yellow. 

 

So I cut the boaders off the chess boards, Made new borders and new filletti and tried again keeping the frame proud of the filletti and the filletti flush (ish) with the squares.

 

Conclusion:  Since I have to make a straight cut next to the black filletti one way or the other.  Next time (if ever) I will veneer the filletti to the MDF along with the squares so all the veneer is in the same plane and only the frame needs to be brought down to be flush. OR  use much wider filletti so a little variation in width will not be noticed.

A little bit about making a frame for something that is not perfecty square.  Works for any piece, any shape, with straight edges.

Sled:  Place the piece on the sled so that the saw curf roughly bisects the corner angle ( does not need to be perfect).  Hold the guides (MDF) against the peice and clampt the guide down. Remove the piece.  Now you can cut the right and left frame pieces that meet at this corner.  Be sure to number the corners on the board and on the pieces.  Start with one corner ( I like to call it number 1) and work your way around the board gluing one side at a time.  This will give you perfect miters but the tricky part is cutting each frame piece to exactly the right length - sneak up on it while your sled is set for the corner you are working on.  Once you move on to the next corner, you cannot go back to a previous corner.

In this pic, Side, 2-1 and 3-2 have been glued to the board and 4-3 is now clamped. The short piece on side 4-1 is used because the frame piece that is to go there is to long  to fit between the corners - always true with the last side to be glued.

 

[Chestnut]

Oh man that mite tip is excellent! That's similar to how i do picture frames but the actually angle is easily variable with the adjustable fences and toggle hold downs.

I need to write this down before i forget. Now if i could remember where i put my pencil.

[Ronn W]

Chess boards done.  Culry maple and ebony veneer. Black and culry maple filletti. Walnut or cherry frames.  I was going ot inlay some stringin on the frames but his was one of those projects that I was glad when It was done.

The more I thnk about it, the more that I am convinced that making the fillettis part of the frames is NOT the way to do make these.  The filletti is the same thickness as the squares do they should be done together.  Yeah I will make chess bards again -----someday  ----not for a while.

[treeslayer]

Those are way cool Ronn, well done sir!

[RichardA]

Excellent craftsmanship. You just can't keep it inside the park can you?

[wtnhighlander]

Looking great, Ronn!

[Chestnut]

Ron they turned out great. I agree with your assessment, but getting the filletti on regardless sounds like a difficult task.

[Ronn W]

On 2/13/2023 at 7:02 AM, Chestnut said:

Ron they turned out great. I agree with your assessment, but getting the filletti on regardless sounds like a difficult task.

Doing the filletti as part of the veneer process is pretty simple.  You will be assembling the squares on a flat surface, shown side down, and using blue tape to hold the squares in postion.  After the squares, cut your filletti, 2 black and 1 white over long and tape them to the perimeter of the squares.  Tape very close to the corner. Lap the filleti at the corners and position a razor blade knife at the corner exaclty where you want the filletti miter and push down cutting through both layers of filletti.  If you try to cut (slice) the filletti there is a chance that they will move enough to ruin your miter.  The turn the piece show face up and apply veneer tape to all the joints including the filletti.   Cut your backer veneer and you are ready to glue and press.  All you veneer is now glue in lace and is flat on the substrate.  Make the wood boards just slighty proud of the veneer surface and scrape/plane/sand the board down to the veneer surface.  The sand the whole thing just enough to get a smooth surface over the entire piece.

[roughsawn]

Awesome job Ronn. I love the alternating grain patterns on the checkerboard squares.

[pkinneb]

Those turned out awesome Ronn!