another chess board question

[David Peterson MN]

I have made a couple chess boards/tables in the past and they have held up very nicely over the years. After researching this site extensively, I realize I have probably been building them wrong. I would take 3/4 boards, strip to size and laminate together like the picture I have shown. Then recut and "flip" the ends around to make my checker pattern and then reglue (biscuits were involved". I realize now that I shouldn't be end gluing the pieces back together.

Would I be better off taking my glueup as in the picture and cutting it into the 1 5/8 strips and then resawing on my bandsaw and then glueing those strips to a mdf substrate??? If so how thick should I make my veneers...or am I ok end gluing these up as I have done in the past?

Thanks for the help.

[Jerome Hanby]

I made mine as you describe then glued it down to MDF, but I only did that to hide some mistakes <g>

[John Coloccia]

I believe Drueke makes their chess boards with solid wood, to the point that you can use both sides of the board (i.e. it's solid all the way through). Their boards are regarded as the gold standard and are often used in tournements at the highest levels of play. Why is it wrong to make the boards as you're making them? Maybe I'm missing something very obvious :)

[Guy Mathews]

Many years ago when lumber was cheap I made a chess board the same way. The only thing I might add is that you leave your outside boards just a little wider. This way you can square up the board at the table saw after your final glue up. The strips are going to slip no matter how hard you try to keep them lined up. By leaving the outside boards wider, you can clean up the ragged edges and still have the outside squares the exact same size as the inside squares. If done properly, all your squares will be the same size and your joints where the corners meet should be right on the money. My first board was off by more then a 16th.

The New Yankee Workshop did a show where old Norm used thinner exotic stock and glued it to an apple-ply substrate 1 piece at a time.

Nowadays, I think that either is way is acceptable. It all comes down to your bottom-line.

If you can have a market for solid hardwood stock projects and make a profit, wonderful! If you would rather offer exotic high priced veneers and a cheaper substrate these too can command a tidy profit. Just recently I made a few boards using walnut stained birch veneer and birch veneer plywood. They came out great. I will dig one out and take a photo.

The nice thing about woodworking is you can always say, "I planned it that way!" :D

Be sure to show your finished board when you get it done.

Guy

[Jerome Hanby]

I think the only "problem" is that you are gluing end grain to end grain and not forming the world's strongest joints. If you are using two contrasting woods that have similar expansion characteristics, then I bet that joint is plenty strong enough...


I believe Drueke makes their chess boards with solid wood, to the point that you can use both sides of the board (i.e. it's solid all the way through). Their boards are regarded as the gold standard and are often used in tournements at the highest levels of play. Why is it wrong to make the boards as you're making them? Maybe I'm missing something very obvious :)

[David Peterson MN]

My worry right now is that the end grain to end grain glue joints could fail eventually. I would like to be able to sell these boards and I would feel terrible if they failed on the buyer.

[David DeCristoforo]

"My worry right now is that the end grain to end grain glue joints could fail..."

They will fail. Sooner or later. Trust me on this. And if you are selling them, your customers will not be happy. The long grain joints will be OK. Go here:

http://www.daviddecristoforo.com/chessdd/boards.html

Scroll down a bit and look very closely at the small picture of the "interlock joint". It's really just a bit more complex version of a glue joint. But it provides a surprising amount of "long grain" gluing area on the ends of the squares. This is the only way I have found to make chessboards out of solid wood that will hold up over time. And , believe me when I say that I have tried "everything"!

[David Peterson MN]

"My worry right now is that the end grain to end grain glue joints could fail..."

They will fail. Sooner or later. Trust me on this. And if you are selling them, your customers will not be happy. The long grain joints will be OK. Go here:

http://www.daviddecristoforo.com/chessdd/boards.html

Scroll down a bit and look very closely at the small picture of the "interlock joint". It's really just a bit more complex version of a glue joint. But it provides a surprising amount of "long grain" gluing area on the ends of the squares. This is the only way I have found to make chessboards out of solid wood that will hold up over time. And , believe me when I say that I have tried "everything"!

David-
I went to your site previously and this is what started making me worry about my method of construction. Since I have the long grain glued already, do you think I would be better off making veneer out of the strips and gluing to a substrate or placing a groove and spline to provide more gluing surface between the end grain glueups???

[David DeCristoforo]

Well, it's a "can of worms" one way or the other. I started out making them with 3/16" "veneers" front and back with a five ply core. But the end grain joints between the squares was just as big a problem as it was with solid wood. They started out nice and flat but after a while you could feel ridges at all of the end grain joints. Sometimes it would get bad enough that you could actually see the ridges. Since I really wanted to make solid wood boards anyway, I started working on finding a way to join the strips end to end that would hold up for the long run. The joint I pointed you to was (as I said) the only thing I ever found that actually worked like I wanted it to. What's nice about it is that the flat at the top and bottom of the joint is only about 1/16" which really seems to eliminate any "ridging" between the squares. I have a board made of lacewood and tiger maple that is now eight years old and it's still as smooth and flat as the day it was finished.

This is a difficult problem because you are not only dealing with the end grain issue but also with the expansion and contraction of dissimilar woods. I wish I could point you to an easy way to deal with it but I have never found one other than the joint I have been using for almost ten years now. I put a lot of time in on this and never found any other solution. Splines... biscuits... "Vee" grooves... T&G... you name it, I've tried it.

BTW, the one thing that will make a board look bad is if the squares do not meet perfectly at each intersection. One of the advantages of my method of milling the joints is that, because the strips are run between the cutter and a fence, they all end up exactly the same width (I use this joint for both end and long grain joints). A few grains of sand in the glue will keep them from slipping out of alignment under clamping pressure.

[Greg Magone]

I made a chess board in high school shop from pine and walnut thirteen years ago. I made it solid and the same way as the OP - and glued end grain to end grain. It never failed on me..

Your experience may be different.

[David DeCristoforo]

"It never failed on me....."

That's good. You are lucky. I too have "broken the rules" from time to time and gotten away with it. But the OP is thinking about selling boards and that will result in more headaches than anyone should have to deal with. Look at it this way. Having a cutter like the one I use made will set you back around a grand (plus or minus). Mine's an insert cutter so it set me back quite a bit more. But that is not an impossible investment and you might even find a "stock" cutter that will work the same way. Maybe like this one: http://www.toolstoday.com/p-5741-carbide-tipped-glue-joint-cutter.aspx

[Mike Langford]

"Medic"
I built a board for my son using this guy's method: http://www.thefrankes.com/wp/?p=48/

It's been together with no problems for two years now.....

127950 127951

They don't call me "Overkill Joe" fer nuttin'....:D
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[David Peterson MN]

Thanks for all the good info. Since I have already started my glueup before my original post, I think I will continue the board using the franke method which will also allow me to make several boards from what I have glued up BUT I will be looking to purchase a cutter for my RT so I can use David's method which I think will most likely result in a long lasting board.

[David DeCristoforo]

If you do this, the final thickness of the "veneers" should be no more than 3/16" (1/8" would be better. I used to start out with a 3/16" layer and then take it down after glue up by running the board through a drum sander.)

Also, FWIW "standard" square size for "tournament" chessboards is 2.25". But many of the better quality hardwood Staunton style pieces have larger diameter bases than the typical "game store" sets and will feel crowded on 2.25" squares. 2.375" or 2.5" squares are common. I've probably made more 2.375" square boards than any other size. Anything under 2.25" is almost pointless as they will be too small for anything other than the "cheapo" sets.

[John Coloccia]

Well, it's a "can of worms" one way or the other. I started out making them with 3/16" "veneers" front and back with a five ply core. But the end grain joints between the squares was just as big a problem as it was with solid wood. They started out nice and flat but after a while you could feel ridges at all of the end grain joints. Sometimes it would get bad enough that you could actually see the ridges. Since I really wanted to make solid wood boards anyway, I started working on finding a way to join the strips end to end that would hold up for the long run. The joint I pointed you to was (as I said) the only thing I ever found that actually worked like I wanted it to. What's nice about it is that the flat at the top and bottom of the joint is only about 1/16" which really seems to eliminate any "ridging" between the squares. I have a board made of lacewood and tiger maple that is now eight years old and it's still as smooth and flat as the day it was finished.

This is a difficult problem because you are not only dealing with the end grain issue but also with the expansion and contraction of dissimilar woods. I wish I could point you to an easy way to deal with it but I have never found one other than the joint I have been using for almost ten years now. I put a lot of time in on this and never found any other solution. Splines... biscuits... "Vee" grooves... T&G... you name it, I've tried it.

BTW, the one thing that will make a board look bad is if the squares do not meet perfectly at each intersection. One of the advantages of my method of milling the joints is that, because the strips are run between the cutter and a fence, they all end up exactly the same width (I use this joint for both end and long grain joints). A few grains of sand in the glue will keep them from slipping out of alignment under clamping pressure.

Oh I see. You guys don't like the JOINT. LOL...I thought it was some objection to having unbacked wood in there.

Did you try dowels? Where the joints actually failing or where they shifting enough to be noticable and ugly? That's a neat joint that you put into your boards.

[David DeCristoforo]

"Did you try dowels?"

One of the first things I tried.

"Where the joints actually failing or where they shifting enough to be noticable and ugly?"

Either. Or both...

[Howard Jahnke]

I made a chess board 14 years ago out of Corian and walnut. Double sided board, and still use it to this day. It has been knocked over and dropped on a few occasions and still looks identical to the day it was finished. I had decided then that this was a good method of dealing with opposing grain issues. After this many years I would say it works well.

[Mike Heidrick]

David, how do you make the interlock joint? What bit/cutter are you using. Could you use a Freud EC031 Reverse glue joint?

[David DeCristoforo]

I had my cutter made bit it's very similar to this:

http://www.toolstoday.com/p-5741-carbide-tipped-glue-joint-cutter.aspx

I tried a "glue joint" cutter like the one in your pic but there were two "issues:" with it. First, I wanted more "fingers" to maximize the "long grain" contact. And second, since the top and bottom of the cutter in your pic are not in alignment, the squares are all offset on the "bottom" which makes it look totally bizarre. Of course if you are not worried about what the underside of the board looks like, this is "moot". But I wanted the squares to align on both sides.

[Guy Mathews]

As promised, this is the board I made using just birch veneer plywood. The apron is some old oak that I salvaged from an old building that was being torn down.

A piece of birch veneer was stained and allowed to dry.

Strips were cut and glued and then cut and glued again to make the checker/chessboard pattern.

A pour on epoxy resin provided the top coat and it is as level as the day it was poured. If you look closely, you can see a ring in epoxy resin on the upper left dark square. It is from a shot glass that was sitting on the board only 24 hours after the epoxy was poured.

This board is actually for playing a game my family likes to call Irish Checkers. Each player starts with 12 shot glasses of his or her favorite intoxicating sipping whiskey. As you jump an opponents shot glass, you have to drink their shot.

The winner is the person who doesn't puke, pass out or fall face first into the board!

The back side was never finished or sealed. I just ran it through the wide belt sander yesterday to get a few years of stains off of it.

Anyway, there are many ways to skin a cat and I would say that we have touched upon nearly all of them when it comes to cats named "Chessboard"!

[David DeCristoforo]

"...a game...call Irish Checkers..."

That's similar to "Alcoholic Chess". The pawns are represented by shots and the pieces by mixed drinks that increase in potency according to the value of the pieces. The Queen is a 5th. You have to drink what you capture so there is a "built in handicap". The famous chess champion Emanual Lasker was known to be the best alcoholic chess player in history due to his uncommonly high tolerance for alcohol. He is reputed to have won a game in which he was in a particularly difficult position by setting up a forced sacrifice of his queen.

[Guy Mathews]

"...a game...call Irish Checkers..."

That's similar to "Alcoholic Chess". The pawns are represented by shots and the pieces by mixed drinks that increase in potency according to the value of the pieces. The Queen is a 5th. You have to drink what you capture so there is a "built in handicap". The famous chess champion Emanual Lasker was known to be the best alcoholic chess player in history due to his uncommonly high tolerance for alcohol. He is reputed to have won a game that he was in a particularly difficult position by setting up a forced sacrifice of his queen.

David, thanks for the story about Alcoholic Chess. I think the queen sacrifice thing is hysterical.
M*A*S*H fans may remember a similar game where Hawkeye and Trapper "perverted the game of checkers" according to Frank Burns!

I can not remember, but I believe when Trapper told Hawkeye to "King me." Hawkeye put an olive in his shot.