veneer for chess board

[selly]

Got a lovely old chess board table to do up. All the old squares have warped. Want to completely renew the squares.

Does anyone know where the squares can be supplied ready cut? If not can you recommend a nice veneer for the white and black squares and suppliers?

Thanks

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well, obvious candidates for the timbers are sycamore or holly for the white, and ebony, walnut, cocobolo or bog oak for the black.

But chess bards are not normally made by assembling squares, they are made by assembling strips.

I would get a couple of turnery blanks and rip them into strips as wide as the square you want and ten times as long (well 8 plus lots of kerf allowances). With a jolly good blade from Tuffsaws, bandsaw them into veneers of, say, 3mm thick. You'll need 4 of each colour.
Glue them side by side to make a zebra crossing, then cut them again crossways. When you glue that lot up you have your chessboard.
S

 

[jasonB]

Maple & ebony work well.

Someone like Anita will sell small amounts

http://www.anitamarquetry.co.uk/main/hub/hub.shtml


As said cut into strips to the required widths 4 of one colour 5 of the other then cut the otherway and shift the strips by one square

J

 

[jumps]

what's wrong with just alternating the same number of each :?:

 

[Steve Maskery]

4 is the same number of each...

S

 

[jasonB]

Keeps the grain direction the same.

J

 

[jumps]

4 is the same number of each...

S

Steve, that was a :?: to Jason !

I see his point now - but was also presuming that there wasn't going to be a lot of planing on those thin pieces!

 

[jasonB]

Its as much visual direction as physical. You would be best scraping or sanding, planing may wel just tear the veneer off the board if its commercial (thin) veneer.

J

 

[Steve Maskery]

I've learned something, thanks Jason.
S

 

[jumps]

Its as much visual direction as physical. You would be best scraping or sanding, planing may wel just tear the veneer off the board if its commercial (thin) veneer.

J

always one more angle on these things - thanks Jason.

 

[Crooked Tree]

I did this a while back using veneers from a selection pack purchased from, I think, Vale Veneers (bought online). The link below is to the post, although I did not show much of the detail of the veneering.

wip-chess-box-t38240.html

I used the technique described in an old book, which was as I recall:

A piece of ply as a cutting board, with a strip of straight edged timber glued/screwed to it as a fence. Veneer was placed against the fence, with the grain running along the fence. 2 identical spacer blocks were made from scrap, with tape added to shim them to the exact width of strip required. The blocks were placed on top of the veneer and against the fence at either end, with a steel rule against the blocks. 4 strips of each veneer type were cut using a stanley knife. These were glued edge to edge in alternating colours using strips of gum tape to make a "stripy" board. This was then placed against the fence with the grain at 90 degrees to the fence and the process repeated to yield strips of alternating coloured squares. Every other strip was rotated end-for-end to give the chess board pattern and the strips gum taped together. I think that I taped on the opposite side this time to ensure contact area, removed the tape from the other side and then glued to the ground.

Hope this helps.