Lighted Chess Table

[Ed Morgano]

This is the progress for today. I still have some sanding to do and shaping but they're about done. More to follow..........

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[Ed Morgano]

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I got the base together and stained a golden oak color.

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This is a mockup of the lighted top. It's going to be a real challenge to fit two drawers and the lights in the top.

[Terry Beadle]

I love the base !

I love the lathe !

Great work. I can hardly wait to see the top and base hooked up.

This is a piece of art !

[Jon Prouty]

Jon,
The lathe is a long story. I've been doing woodworking for over 50 years. Somewhere along the line, my interest in how they did it in the "old days" grew into a facination. I'm not the most skilled woodworker by a long shot but I really enjoy doing unique things out of wood. We built the first model of our wood lathe in about 1995. it consisted of a couple of 2x4's fastened together to make rails.....it had pillow block bearings with a shaft and a pully for the head and a couple of pillow block bearings with a pointed piece of threaded rod mounted on a block of wood....for the tail stock. It was powered by a pully off of my radial arm saw. That was my first model. Since then, I've built 3 more making inprovements with each one. I have tried to use wood for everything that I could. I even made wooden pulleys for the motor. (that only lasted for about 5 years before it wore out) Now, I actually broke down and installed aluminium step pulleys. All of the clamp knobs and screws are wood. I made the head stock while working at my last job as a machinist. The tail stock is the shaft from an old drill press. It has a taper and will hold a live center or a 1/2" drill chuck. Someday I'll probably build a better one making some more improvements. In the mean time, this one still serves me well.

that is really cool - I'm officially bitten by the turning bug. I keep coming back to this one and thinking about building my own some day. Great inspiration! I can't even imagine spinning up a lathe connected to a radial arm saw - like a tractor PTO. Crazy. Looking forward to the rest of this build project.

JP

[Ed Morgano]

Progress was slow today as I spent most of the day planning how to fit two drawers the light and chess board into a 32"x32" square. I did manage to get the table corners layes out and cut. I made a drawing and cut a pattern on my CNC router. After I had the pattern, I traced it onto some glued up blocks and cut them out on the bandsaw.

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[Glenn Bird]

Ed,
Have you considered a white LED setup for the lighting? It would be able to be quite thin.

[Jim O'Dell]

Ed, thanks for emailing me that you had this going. I don't venture into this forum often, but I think I've been converted!
Great work! I love it . Now, which one of the grand daughters gets this???? Jim.

[Ed Morgano]

Ed,
Have you considered a white LED setup for the lighting? It would be able to be quite thin.

Glenn,
I've played with all types of lights to try to get something that would light up the board evenly. So far, I'm leaning toward a florescent light mounted at one end of the board. Pictures to follow.

Ed

[Ed Morgano]

I got the frame done and started working on the drawer slides which have to go under the lighted section and also the lighted box. Here's the progress.......

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[Nick Laeder]

Man, that is beautiful. I hope you're going to turn a nice set of pieces to go with it.

[Justin M Rovang]

Very cool pics - never really knew how those large pedestals were constructed.

If you're looking for some interesting lighting alternatives this site has some neat things: http://www.oznium.com/

If you search for automotive 'accent lighting' you can find some pretty neat products that fit in tight spaces with good output.

[Ed Morgano]

Man, that is beautiful. I hope you're going to turn a nice set of pieces to go with it.

Nick,
The jury is still out on that. I've thought about turning my own set but there are several pieces that would require carving.....which isn't my thing at all. I want a traditional set with knights that look like horses. I've played with some of the modern alternatives but I personally find that I get confused when I don't recognize which pieces are which. Thanks for looking....as a mater of fact, I should thank everyone for looking...........THANKS!

Ed

[Elliott Wesley]

hahaha. nice work. very funny yet i find them fantastic hahaha
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[Chris Fairbanks]

Ed, If you are still trying to find something to light to board check out the SMD 5050 LED Strips. They are low power usage, extremely thin and have 1 LED about every 5/8" I have bought some from Ray Wu on AliExpress before.

http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/7...ing-white.html

All you need is a small 12v DC transformer to hook them up. They can be cut like about every 3" so you can make it fit your needs. Not cheap but might be exactly what you need.

Or if you wanted to go really crazy check out http://www.aliexpress.com/fm-store/7...50RGB-SMD.html

Same type strip but used RGB LEDs and includes a little controller so you can change colors on it

Otherwise the board is looking good.
-Chris

[Van Huskey]

This build has some really cool details, can't wait to see it finished.