how thick can veneer be over BB plywood?

[Roger Feeley]

I want to make chinese checkers games for christmas presents. I want to make the triangular corner pieces out of some contrasting wood. I can go a couple of ways with this:
1. I can start with a maple slab and use a router inlay set to cut the triangles out and then use the same template to cut inlay pieces. This is probably the easiest.
2. I can start with a slab of BB birch plywood and cut 3/16" 'veneer' for all of the pieces: The center hexagon, the 6 triangles and the outer field pieces.

The bit that Rockler sells drills pits about 1/8" deep so whatever I do has to be about 3/16" thick.

Do I have any bad wood movement problems with 3/16" material?

Yes, I am getting an early start but I work slow. Arthritis.

[Peter Quinn]

Wood still moves at 3/16", but exerts less force on the substrate IME than thicker stock. I've done lots of skins at 3/16", but they were single wide pieces. You will have the advantage of using smaller squares set at right angles to each other which should short circuit some of the movement, or at least cut it in half over. I'm thinking you'll be ok if you add a balance layer to the back, but I'm not sure how you get that in place at the asme time as all your squares? Perhaps you edge glue longer squares, slice these as a cross cut, off set them, edge glue these, then glue up as a single blank?

[Roger Feeley]

You seem to be thinking of regular checkers with an 8x8 grid of squares. Chinese Checkers is a board with a center hexagon surrounded by 6 equilateral triangles. Geometrically, it's not dissimilar from a Star of David.