completed chess table

[Dave Cohen]

I built this chess table to sell at my first craft show, but a friend bought it a few days before the show.

Its cherry, maple (some bird's eye in the trim pieces) and purple heart:

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[Barry Bruner]

I do not blame your friend for jumping on that he knew it would be gone in five seconds. Great looking table. Barry Bruner

[John Thompson]

Very nice.. Dave. I wanted one years ago when I played but that is water under the bridge at this point. You did an excellent job.

Sarge..

[Dewey Torres]

Checkmate! Nice job.

[Jim Becker]

Really nice work, Dave! I can also see why it sold so quickly...

[Larry Fox]

Very nice piece Dave - well done.

[Dave Cohen]

Thanks guys its always nice to get feedback from fellow wood workers on your works, whether it sells or not.

[Michael Pfau]

Dave, thats a great looking table..My grandfather build a neat checker table that no longer exists. Over the years, it has disappeared or got tossed out. Did you have plans on this project?..or self designed? Let me know..i really want to build one!!

[Dave Cohen]

It was self-designed, kind of evolved as it went along...I didn't even do any drawings....

Couple things I might change....make the spread of the legs wider to accomodate bigger people and a wider variety of chair sizes.

I will have to rotate the table top 90 degrees, someone pointed out that the starting square for chess should be white not dark (I have the drawer in front of the side with a starting dark square)

For this type of glue up you have to be careful to orient all grain in the same direction, including trim strips otherwise wood movement could ruin the top.

I used biscuits to hold the strips for the board together on the end grain glue ups.

When I glued the end grain trim strips around the board, I first saturated the strips with glue (let the capillary action draw it in) let that set for a few minutes and then re-applied glue and clamped it up.

When I glued and clamped the out field of cherry, I also biscuited the end grain joints.

The base is maple, I cut tapers on the inner two sides of the legs and joined them to the apron with mortise and tenon and used anchor screws and cross brackets on the under side of each corner to draw them in tight too.

I made simple small velvet lined drawers (flocked on the sides), mitered and splined in the corners for reinforcement.

To make the aprons where the drawer holes are, I ripped the apron boards twice and then cut out a segment out of the middle board for the drawer hole and then glued and clamped it back together - gives a very nice clean look for the drawer hole, I don't think you could get it this clean with a jig or scroll saw, maybe a template with a router might work too.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have any other questions

Dave