Halloween Checkers

[polarbrainfreeze]

My daughter wanted to make a chess set with a Halloween theme. I thought that was a little complicated, but a Halloween checkers set is very doable.

It’s all Baltic birch, stained different colors.

[polarbrainfreeze]

You’re right. I’ll ask the kids to choose the icons for a chess set.

[caribis2]

So did you just leave the masking on for the white squares or did you go with different woods?

Headless Horseman for the knights and creepy, half-crumbled castle tower for the rooks?

[polarbrainfreeze]

No, all the squares are individually cut. I taped them in place before removing them from the GF. I then applied glue to back of half the squares and put the whole thing on a backer board. I then stained each square that was not glued down and glued them down one by one. That way, the grain of the board is consistent across all the squares.

It took about an hour to do. I’m sure there are much faster ways of doing it.

[polarbrainfreeze]

@jrnelson

in all honesty, i don’t think a chess set would be much more complicated than all this effort (not that i’m trying to compel you to make a chess set of course, rather, i think you’re selling yourself short as this was a fair effort ).

You were right, making a chess set was not much harder.

[Jules]

I love the little ghouls in the chess set. What a clever idea!

[polarbrainfreeze]

I’m thinking about that as well. I’ll probably try that approach later this week.

[buschtrent]

Actually the kerf cut doin a score provides a natural break to stop stain seepage. It might it look as professional as separate pieces but it is quick and easy.

[ihermit2]

is that board rotated? I thought queen was always on her own color?

[lairdknox]

It must be chess board day.

I just posted a way to get a better glue up. Forget about aligning all those pesky corners.

Making a hardwood chess board

There’s an easy way to glue up chess boards without dealing with all those little squares. Say you want 1" squares. Start by cutting four 1 x 8.25" strips out of each color. Glue them together, alternating colors. Use a couple of bar clamps to hold them tight. Once dry cut 1 x 8" strips perpendicular to the original cut. Flip every other strip, glue up and clamp. I made a board this way in high school wood shop out of maple and mahogany. I started to turn the pieces on the lathe but the semest…

Love the chess pieces.

[smcgathyfay]

See I would prepaint the board then mask. Score all the squares, remove the just checkerboard, then paint the dark color with an airbrush. (you can regulate paint and air flow which makes the airbrush a great way to paint since it wont get too wet or lift up the mask…)

Love the figures you used!!

[polarbrainfreeze]

I found those Halloween icons on my go-to free svg site: http://all-silhouettes.com/ (which I have posted in this forum before).

[joe]

That is awesome!

[kennethclapp]

Ahhhhhhh! Something else for my to-do list. Instead of getting shorter now that Inhave my machine, it just keeps growing exponentially