Question about Veneering and gameboard making

[Trevor Walsh]

I've got some veneer and plywood, I'm intending to make a backgammon board for a gift. Basically, I don't know what order of operations I should follow to "inlay" the triangles. Should I cut out all the individual pieces, tape them together then glue it all down? Or should I veneer the background wood into place, cut out and inlay the triangles after?

The current plan is to hammer veneer with hot hide, though I may also press in a caul press with liquid hide.

Any thoughts?

[Marco Cecala]

Cut and tape the design, easy to get it right. Then glue to the substrate. Might use mdf with a piece of veneer as a backer as opposed to plywood. It will be more stable.

[Tony Shea]

I agree with the mdf comment. But if need be a good baltic birch plywood should work ok too. Mdf makes for an easy surface to veneer too. I do hate working with the stuff though. And I also agree with getting all your shapes made and taping them together, veneer as a whole.

[Sean Hughto]

Marco is right, cut and tape, then apply to substrate.

One thought, wooden backgammon boards are loud (clattering dice and tapping checkers). That's why cork, leather, and various padded vinyl etc. are so often used.

I happen to be in the midst of making a backgammon board right now. I found tooling simple triangle into tooling leather and painting them with leather dye is pretty straight forward and makes for a nice surface. If you glue the leather to some ply to insert in a frame for the box, you can do your fancy veneering on the other side of the ply to decorate the outside of the case. Just for what it's worth.

[Russell Sansom]

I've made eight or ten over the years. My wife's side is Armenian. Like the Greeks, the Turks and some others from that region, everybody plays backgammon. In their case, the noise is a significant part of the game. The clatter of little dice and the slapping pieces are something you become accustomed to on family holidays where there are usually at least two games going at all times, often as an informal tournament.
I made a backgammon table for the family patriarch. In that case, 3/4" oak with painted points. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's still beloved in the family. The oak has worn down almost 1/8" in places and the paint has half worn off after almost 30 years. Every once in a while I offer to restore it but nobody will let me. I wish I could post a photo but it's 50 miles away right now.

My mother, on the other hand, was a game player and she got into backgammon but she hated the sound. I made her and my sister identical little cherry ones. We all hated the loud sound, so I lined those with painted cork. That worked surprisingly well.

The layout is an enjoyable exercise and needs to be done with some care. You need the pieces first to do the layout, otherwise they don't pack right on the playing surface, both vertically and horizontally...horizontal being the more critical dimension. I was building harpsichords at the time, so this was a piece of cake. But if you haven't taken on this part of the design yet, think it out and give it some time. It's a slight bit harder than it looks.

The reason I lay out this long-winded tale is because I had a horrible time getting the inlays right and eventually gave up because they didn't meet my standards 30 years ago. A set of points is still floating around in my shop somewhere. I have often meant to ask someone who succeeded how they did it.
The biggest problem is that the points are so acute that the very tips break. The "negative" point, the background, comes to the same extremely sharp point and requires a knife with a very thin, very sharp point ( like an exact #11 ). On this...uh...point, I've seen some designs that have small circles inlaid at the points for this very reason.
I have always thought the way to do this is to lay two sheets of veneer together and cut out the points and the background at the same time. In my experiments, it became obvious in a hurry that the cutting had to proceed from the point backwards, otherwise top point fractures and the you overshoot the background (cutout hole )point. The problem with this is the actual tip. If your veneer isn't paper thin, then a knife blade cuts too wide a swath on the background at the very tip. This is obvious on some boards; there's an unsightly gap between point and the hole it is supposed to fit in.


Sorry...long windy post, but this one of the few ( personally speaking ) woodworking riddles I've never figured out. Looking forward to some cogent advice from one of the SMC folk who can show us the light and the way.

[Mike Henderson]

To mitigate the problem of tips breaking when you cut pie shaped pieces of veneer, apply veneer tape to the veneer before you cut it. You can buy wide (2") veneer tape that makes it go faster. Brush the tape on well so it really sticks. I use a brass brush. [of course, the veneer tape goes on the show face, NEVER on the glue face.]

To cut the pie shaped pieces, I make a template out of 1/4" MDF. You make your first cut the normal way, then align the template with one edge of the veneer and cut the other side. Cut from tip to back, never from back to tip. Cutting from back to tip will increase the probability of breaking the tip.

Then, if your pieces do not fit exactly, you can use a sanding block (sandpaper glued to a piece of MDF) to sand the edges. The thing to watch out for is that the tip is now weak and will bend as you sand, so the tip can come out wider than you'd like. Use a block to hold the veneer down and make sure it goes as far out on the tip as you can get it.

Mike

[Sean Hughto]

You need the pieces first to do the layout, otherwise they don't pack right on the playing surface, both vertically and horizontally...horizontal being the more critical dimension.

I agree 100%:

[Russell Sansom]

Thanks, Mike,
Pretty much agree with you. My biggest heartache was cutting holes to fit the points ( by points I mean the pie-shaped pieces ) AND getting a perfect fit. They also have to be incredibly uniform. A slightly crooked or slightly misfit point stands out like the proverbial sore thumb.

And to follow up on my own post, the thing about vertical packing is that I always like a tiny fraction of the point to peek out when the 5 pieces are lined up on it. 1/16" is plenty. I think they look best that way, but it's not really important.

[Sean Hughto]

Why not use a veneer saw to cut all the positive and negative pie wedges with a straight edge with the veneer doubled - just straight lines at an angle letting the points form in the process? Then tape up these finished point assemblies to whatever you want for the middle board strip.

[Trevor Walsh]

Sean, that last one is not a bad idea, It calls for a pit more waste than I was hoping for, but I could live with that. I am certainly going to use a template for the "darts" I'll probably make a negative template for cutting the darts in the board. I'm using 1/4" baltic birch, I can't stand MDF and in the hand tool shop I have at home I don't want it making any appearances. It's going to be a folding case, so weight and bulkiness are of consideration.

As to the design, I've been building it repeatedly in illustrator, I'm cutting the pieces to 1" diameter, the base of the "darts" will be 1 1/4" and 6" long. Each half of the board will measure 7.5" wide by 16" long. The pieces and die will go into a bag that sits inside. I'm still debating between a solid wood frame to make up the sides, or using more baltic and veneering the whole outside.

[Sean Hughto]

If you are really going to do it, you could quickly fabricate a cutting jig to orient your veneers and straightedge. Also, I was suggesting cutting the doubled up even, taping that cut and then making the next one, etc. That will protect the points better.

[Trevor Walsh]

Good ideas, I'm really motivated to finish this bench so I can work on this board.

[Russell Sansom]

Wanted to share one of my backgammon benches just to share.
The pieces are ebony and Osage orange. The Osage started out as a beautiful orange but darkened in a hurry. The nail polish works quite well to distinguish them. They are 2-1/4" in diameter. Turning these was more complicated than I would have guessed at first.

I'd like to reiterate, start with the pieces. At least do a mock up. I would try out the methods people are suggesting with a fraction of a board at full size. There are some puzzles hidden in the puzzle.

[Russell Sansom]

Wanted to share one of my backgammon benches just to share.<br>
The pieces are ebony and Osage orange. The Osage started out as a beautiful orange but darkened in a hurry. The nail polish works quite well to distinguish them. They are 2-1/4" in diameter. &nbsp; Turning these was more complicated than I would have guessed at first.<br><br>I'd like to reiterate, start with the pieces. &nbsp; At least do a mock up. &nbsp;I would try out the methods people are suggesting with a fraction of a board &nbsp;at full size. &nbsp;There are some puzzles hidden in the puzzle.

[David Keller NC]

I'm using 1/4" baltic birch, I can't stand MDF and in the hand tool shop I have at home I don't want it making any appearances. It's going to be a folding case, so weight and bulkiness are of consideration.

If you so choose, you can certainly make a successful veneered piece in solid wood and avoid MDF and plywood altogether. The key is the choice of species for the underlayment and how it's sawn. I've made pieces in both quartersawn Eastern White Pine and quartersawn mahogany. Both are exceptionally stable, with qs EWP having a slight edge over S.A. mahogany.

Quartersawn wood is fairly easy to get - you simply have to buy wide boards and rip the edges off, which are almost uniformly quartersawn to riftsawn (using riftsawn is no real disadvantage in stability).

One comment about hammer veneering to solid wood - it is extremely important to apply some moisture to the back side of the board that you're veneering to. Lots of folks veneer both sides of the board, but I've never found that to be necessary, and it's extremely rare to see period pieces treated this way.

Also - realize that commercial veneer may be too thin for a game board. Unless the species you use is extremely hard and dense, it may be worn through very quickly. For that reason, I would consider sawing my own veneer about 1/16" thick and a minimum, 3/32nds would be better. If you do decide on commercial veneer, I would use a very hard, long-wearing finish. Alkyd resin varnish (NOT polyurethane!) would be suitable, but conversion varnish would be better.