View Full Version : OT - I made a chessboard
tony ennis
10-13-2009, 07:42 PM
While I should have been learning about 20HP Briggs engines, I was off making a chessboard (http://tony-stormcrow.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-finished-another-chessboard.html) instead.
I made one last year gave it to a pal. My son was pretty annoyed with me - he assumed he was gonna get it. I had no clue he wanted it. So I made him this one. It's got a maple and walnut board with a cherry frame. I oiled and waxed it - no stain.
hornluv
10-13-2009, 07:57 PM
Beautiful. I can see why he was pissed that you gave the other one away.
Ken_Shea
10-13-2009, 07:57 PM
Beautiful Tony, your son will be pleased that it was made just for him.
rockrat
10-13-2009, 08:01 PM
Fantastic. My father made one for me that would open to hold all the pieces. I cherish it even though I dont get to play it much any more. Maybe when little rockrat gets old enough we can use it.
Nice work.
rock~
andy_b
10-13-2009, 10:46 PM
Tony,
oh man, you are going to be mad at me. :) i was splitting firewood today and some of it was from a bunch of walnut trees that a friend had knocked down by a tornado a few months ago. they had already cut most of the logs into firewood lengths by the time i made it up to his place. as i was splitting it i was thinking i wonder what kind of projects i could use 16" lengths of walnut for? a chessboard (or any type of game board) would probably be a good use. sadly, most of it has now been split for firewood. the thing was, this stuff was the straightest, clearest, most purple walnut i have ever seen.
and what other tree type was second most common from the storm damage? you guessed it, maple. i was splitting some of that too and it looks like white American cheese. pure white with no grain to speak of. i think i could have made about 500 chessboards. :)
oh well, it will keep me warm next year.
your chessboard came out beautiful! i think i may pull a few of the remaining logs out and see if i can get enough pieces to make up something similar. my kids are at more of the checkerboard level, but i think they would appreciate it.
andy b.
tony ennis
10-13-2009, 11:38 PM
When making a board, don't forget to take the width of the saw blade into account. You'll lose about an inch of your board strips to kerf. This board has 2 1/4" squares. The strips were 20" to 22" long A little extra allows you to trim off the gnarly bits too.
When my youngest daughter was in high school she made me for my kitchen a cutting block of maple and walnut - interleaved, not checkered. These are two very complementary lustrous, contrasting woods. That was in 1985. I still have and use it daily, and it's still a nice looking piece of working art. I like to ponder all the garlic and onions that have given up their lives on that block!
Some things, simple in the making, keep on giving years on.
psomero
10-14-2009, 03:52 AM
nice work, i must say.
that clarinet also shown on your blog is pretty damn nice considering its age. coincidentally enough, my sister worked at the leblanc clarinet factory for a year or two after getting her masters in concert clarinet performance.
Mcgyver
10-14-2009, 05:36 AM
nice work Tony!
lynnl
10-14-2009, 01:17 PM
Beautiful work!
My dad was a master at playing checkers. After I got into woodworking I thought about making a board like that for him. Never did, and too late now.
John Stevenson
10-14-2009, 02:01 PM
Something on my to do list one day.
Bought a set of cast metal chess pieces in silver when I was in Oman a few years ago, hardly much more than the weight of the metal but nicely done and this was from a souk in the old part of town, not a tourist area at all but we had friends who lived and worked over there.
When I was at the piano company the ban on ivory had been in force for some time, we owned about 17 metric tonnes but it was in a bonded warehouse and we couldn't use this other than certain exempt jobs. Repair of church organs was one exemption. Didn't really matter other than dead money tied up in the warehouse as by that time the plastics were far better to work with than ivory, quicker, cleaner and you could match the plastics better.
However it was a large rambling building and I managed to 'find' enough ivory blocks to do two chess boards.
The ebony was no problem as we still had a load in the wood yard, that just needed 'finding'.
However over time I know where the ivory is but no idea what happened to the ebony, it's about somewhere but quite where I don't know.
As I say long term to do list.
.