Embedding magnets in segments

[Roger Feeley]

The idea is to build a cylindrical checkerboard. Imagine rings of 9 segments. 8 of them alternate cherry and mapleand the 9th segment is ebony (or some other combination). Imagine 10 rings. 8 are as just described and there is a bottom and top ring of ebony.

Now imagine drilling each segment from the inside and embedding a rare-earth magnet in each one.

If we turn this into a cylindrical vessel, we should have a round checker/chess board.

-- Gotta keep north/south straight
-- The magnet has to be spaced back far enough so we don't accidentally turn down to it. It has to be close enough that the pieces will stick.
-- I would put the whole thing on a rotating base

It seems to me that I am creating an interesting twist on checkers in that you can't see the whole board.

I'm considering this for next years Christmas presents.

Anybody see any big problems?

[Scott Hackler]

Sounds like a cool idea Roger. I don't think it the magnets on the inside of the segments is a big deal as long as you drill them before assembly, with a depth stop and use rare earth magnets. I wonder if you could turn two other cylinders one black, one red.. that would slip over the checker board cylinder and use a plug cutter or hole saw to cut out the pieces of the checkers. Then they would have the same curvature of the board. Back drill the back sides with a stop for the insertion of a small washer or something iron.

Be sure and show the end result, sounds kinda neat.

[Roger Feeley]

An interesting idea. I hadn't considered shaping the backs of the checkers. The disadvantage of making them concave would be that you would have to align them correctly. Maybe I should go the other way and make the backs spherical so they would be easy to grasp.

[robert baccus]

You guys are definitely getting cabin fever.