# Chess table design



## igneous (Nov 24, 2010)

Hey guys, I know there has been a lot of discussion about this, but I still have a lot of questions. 

I'm rather new to woodworking, but for the past couple of months I've ben spending several hours a day in the wood shop. I'm building a chess table as a gift, and as my first bog project I'm going way out of my way to make sure I'm doing it right. 

I initially thought I'd veneer the chessboard on a piece of mdf, now that I'm looking at veneers, I'm thinking that it would probably be cheeper to just buy the wood. Not only that, I think it would be easier to get the precision for the 64 squares rather than hand cut 64 veneer squares. My concern is wood movement though. 

They guys in the shop are always harping on the wood movement thing, and from what I've seen rightly so. I've seen a few projects busted. Some people online have built the boards so that all the squares have the grain going the same way, and allowing for movement in that direction. The problem I have with that is all the well made traditional boards have the grain on the different squares perpendicular to each other. I'm really wanting to make a quality traditional looking board. So as far as movement is concerned, if the wood grains are perpendicular I would think that would put a huge amount of stress on the entire board. 

I'm building the board into a table, so a huge amount of work is going into this, and I really dont want it cracking in a year. Not to mention that its a gift and would be pretty embarrassing. 

Is there anyone here that has experience with building chess boards that can offer any advice?


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## Mizer (Mar 11, 2010)

I think that the movement in the area of a piece of wood the size of a chess square would be minimal plus the fact that it is locked in by other pieces of wood. I haven't built a chess board but I have built several cutting boards that I alternated the grain just like a chess board and have not had a problem (as of yet).


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## Mr Mac (May 31, 2010)

Check out Steve's video on making a chess board. This is the easiest way to make a board and they are stable.


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