Quick question to all of the expirimenters out there. I tried to do a search, but can’t find the right phrase to use. There are a billion posts relating to “glue”. My question is, if I wanted to make this without actually having (or wanting to get) 1/4" material, is it dangerous (or difficult) to use Gorilla Wood Glue and glue 2 1/8" pieces together BEFORE cutting out all of the Scrabble tiles? I plan to make myself a prototype/cheap version of this out of MDF, and I have some that cuts very very well. But I don’t want to poison myself or my machine, or add a substance that the machine can’t handle.
I think your results would be better if you cut all the pieces and then glued or got 1/4" material. I don’t think you would poison yourself with the Gorilla glue, but I think the cutting experience is different if you are layering materials.
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I figured someone would say that. Blech! I don’t want to glue a complete set of tiles, and I really don’t want to go find thicker material that I’d have to play with to learn to cut right. I really like my Amazon MDF.
So take some scraps, glue them up and try it. Nothing to lose. I don’t believe white or yellow wood glue is toxic when cut. It’s used in making cutting boards with direct food contact. If it doesn’t work, then buy the 1/4”
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Why not let the tiles be 1/8" thick? The commercial ones aren’t 1/4".
So, forgive the newbie question but I’m still getting the hang of this. I don’t see the file on your post? Help meeeee (in The Fly voice).
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The raised grid frame is 1/8. I wanted to make the tiles easier to remove
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If you right click on the picture of his file (not the photos), then click SAVE AS and save it as an SVG file
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Thanks!
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I have used 1/4" solid basswood. Poplar would work, too, and is available at the big box stores at reasonable prices. I seal both surfaces with polyacrylic and mask before cutting the letter tiles. The difficult part is sealing the edges, but I like the results better than I did when I tried 1/4" plywood.
Great movie! Love Vincent price!
Ah, makes sense. I’m noodling a version of this with a veneer grid layer.
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oooh nice! I’m going to have to try this out…love how so many people contribute to a project and come up with so many different versions! Thank you!
Love Scrabble…have worn out many boards over the years. Thank you for sharing. I think this is something I need to make for my husband and I to play…rarely do we play board games with each other…hoping I can get him interested. thank you very much!!! 
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Curious if you have come up with any ideas. Are you talking about it looking like this…or an actual HUGE playing board and then you put the colored words in it to make the crossword look?
I like the idea of the offsets (I have some! woot!) and the idea of hanging the board — since it is acrylic that would keep it from getting scuffed. How thick is the playing board? it looks really thick — that is the two layers together plus the tiles. Curious: is it a plus to be able to read below the letters to the game board or distracting? How did you color the letters and did you color it to just make them stand out or for a reason like by point value? TFS
The base layer is about 1/4 and the top 1/8 with 1/4 pieces so the pieces stick out so the board is 3/8 total.
It’s a little bit distracting but we think it’s fun and fine that you can see through it.
I colored the letters with acrylic paint by hand>>lots of patience! Normally I don’t etch with masking but did for this one. In the future, I would 100% spray paint, just that’s a lot of spray paint to buy. The colors are just for style, no point value association. Just spur of the moment. Didn’t have 26 color so we knew all along I’d have to circle back. Started with the blue I liked best for the letters with the most numbers.
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THANK YOU! This is exactly what I was looking for!
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No problem! That is amazing!!! I definitely love the acrylic with it! As I reopened the file, I did realize that I messed up some of the letterings. I’ll definitely fix that asap.
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How did I miss seeing this before? This is awesome! Thank you! 
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BTW, If you use acrylic for the letters, just thought I’d point out something I learned with my domino set. I used clear acrylic and then painted the dots / pips. They looked awesome. As @geek2nurse reminded me at the time, you can see the dominoes when you are choosing them. I had planned to paint over the dots with another color, but it was hard to do this with craft paint. I’m going to redo them with spray paint (just got busy with lots of other things so haven’t finished).
This is the plan I’m going to try next, maybe I’ll make this set or maybe I’ll just finish my domino set lol:
- Reverse the letters (this doesn’t apply for dominoes since they are just dots lol)
- When printing the letters, score them.
- Weed the inside of the letters and leave the rest of the squares masked.
- Lay the tiles out with printed side up. Spray the letters with spray paint. Let dry fully.
- Weed the remaining masking.
- Lay the tiles out again with the painted side up. Paint again with white spray paint or whatever color you want. Let dry fully.
The designs look so cool this way. But I don’t want to be able to see what I’m picking when the pieces are turned over. I need to teach my kids how to play right and not cheat. 
Anyway, if/when I end up trying this out, i’ll try to remember to update and share pics. (Maybe now that I’ve posted this comment, I’ll be motivated to do it soon. haha)
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