Chess Board

I have always wanted to try building a chess board so this last spring I purchased some mahogany and curly maple (big investment for me) and got to work. It was intended for our oldest son’s birthday. Once I got it all glued up and pretty well finished I invited my wife to check it out and see what her thought where. She is my best critic (I am too hard on myself) and she really liked it. She was so excited that she ran and got the chess pieces her late mother had made for our son and brought them out to place on the board. Then she asked me “where are the pieces going?” I said on the board as we have placed them. No she says where will they be for storage when one isn’t playing chess or have it out on display? I indicated that they looked pretty good in the old girl scout cookie box she got them out of! That didn’t cut it so I had to figure out how to build a base that would house each piece and that the board would fit onto or be part of. It was tricky but after a couple of tries I built the base routing out the half curved groves and a thin piece of wood to form each pocket. Even learned how to flock it. Man are there the colors to choose from. As you can see Grandma loved blue so our son now has a blue and white chess set, a place to store the pieces plus the original project the board to play on. It was a fun project!