Dovetailed Chessboard

This is a chessboard I made for my dad. He had a nice one when I was growing up that was made out of marble. That one broke so he started playing on a piece of cardboard. I saw a wooden chess board at a friends house that inspired me to make this one. I did not want it to split when it got acclimated to a new environment like the one that I saw at a friends house. I used maple and walnut. I just bought a Ryobi router and table at home depot and so I decided to put it together with sliding dovetails and glue. First I cut the wood in 2in strips on the table saw. then I made a sliding dovetail one side male, one side female. Glued it together then turned the glued strips 90 degrees and cross cut the board into 2in strips again. Then I dovetailed those strips the same way. The resulting squares were 1 3/4inX 1 3/4in. I used the leftover maple and walnut to make the boarder. Then lots of sanding. It took me three attempts to get the board right. I gained alot of experience making this thing. I also learned that I could use alot more tools, like a planer. Anyways, I drove it down to my dads house on his birthday and got him out of bed with his grandkids at 1 am. He was thrilled to see his grandbabies and was totally impressed that I had made this for him (I wrapped it in my sons baby blanket on the way in the door). Now it sits under the porcelain chess pieces that were his father’s. You can see the dovetail in the boarder on the second pic.

-- God, Family, Country, Woodshop!