A good friend of mine mentioned that he was interested in getting a chessboard. A few years ago we cut up an old celery pine at his property and I have had the wood seasoning in the shed. A lot of it was punky (hence why it died I think) but there was still some good useable pale-coloured timber.
Also in the woodpile was the remains of the two-foot long purpleheart wharf beam offcut previously used for picture frames. The two timbers would make a nice contrast for a chessboard.
Strips were jointed, thicknessed, ripped to size and then laminated together before being cut into strips on the tablesaw sled.
These were then laminated again to produce the chessboard pattern and this was then epoxied onto a plywood substrate to keep it stable. A thin border of recycled jarrah was glued on to cover the plywood end grain.
With all of the various offcuts utilised, there was enough for two chessboards - one for my mate and one for us. Sanded to 320 grit, they were then oiled with two coats of Danish Oil and some beeswax.
Your move.
