Chess board round 2

[Charlie Fox]

so i have started a new chess board project. walnut and white oak. 2-1/4" regulation. got the halves glued up, and plan on resawing them to get them thinner. have access to a 14" horizontal band saw - dont know the brand but it is industrial - used by one of the top 3 hardwood dealers and custom mills in Houston. since its 14" obviously i had to keep the boards as halves and do the last glue up later. but the only times i have milled anything on this saw was 2"+ natural edge slabs resawed in half, worked great but a bit anxious.

after planing we are at 1-5/16" thick now or 1.3125. assuming 1/16" kerf, 2 cuts is 1/8" loss so i'd have 1.1875"/3 = .396" thick pieces. after final glue up and drum sanding i'll assume about 1/3" or maybe a little thicker.

1) so is that reasonable? i realize none of you know this exact saw but assuming it is as good as they come would you expect pretty decent cuts with minimal if no drift? or should i cut in half and drum sand more to get a thinner board at the end?? obviously i would prefer 9 chess boards to 6 but as a beginner i'll still take it.

2) and is 1/3" thin enough to be able to glue to a substrate to eliminate movement down the road? or should i drum sand more to get it thinner? i guess if i get a little drift i can just drum sand more to even it out - hence thinner end product.

3) what substrate? guy at a woodcraft recommended baltic birch, another person suggested MDF. and yet another complained that his plywood substrate curled.

4) should i glue the frame to substate only or to the edge of board and substrate both?

5) and should i do a miter frame, or 90deg joints? i prefer the latter because i like wider walnut frame north and south and the WO on the sides. and its a little easier.

6) or would i still be better off if i made a frame larger than the board with a rabbet at the top so the board floats in it? hoping that the thin wood over substrate would eliminate that need.

7) and is it chessboard or chess board? criminy i cant find anyone agreeing on that even. ;-)


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[Charlie Fox]

aw c'mon somebody is bound to be able to help me a little here.....

[Charlie Fox]

ok, so it cost me a whopping $27 to have all 6 half/chessboards resawed by 3 - now i can make 9 boards. they are roughly 3/8" or a little better due to a small amount of drift in the cut - nothing that cant be taken out with a little planing, so i should end up with 1/4" thickness. now my dilemna:

not real sure i want to put two roughly 9"x 24" x only1/4"thick panels in my Rockler 36" panel clamps - i only have two, and the panels will have some degree of warping so i would likey need at least a third clamp in the center. still.....1/4" glue surface is one thing at 6" width, but its a whole nuther at 24"

so i am thinking the best bet is to cut my strips from the half panels, then flipping every other one and glueing the strips individually to the substrate. thats 16 strips, but i have a brand new Forrest blade on my table saw and a very well made crosscut sled so i am fairly confident on my cut accuracy and precision. once done, that whole board can then easily go through a 24" drum sander to even it all out - again - a whopping $27 it will cost me to run 9 boards through. $3 bucks each.

come guys help me out. ya'll were real quick to chastise me for making a solid 6/4 chess board with cross grain frame, and then even more flak because i didnt take everyones advice directly to heart even though some of it was conflicting - and now i am trying to do it the right way and all i get is crickets.

and the $million question - baltic birch or MDF for the substrate? or other? and the thicker the better? 1/2 min or 3/4 better methinks
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[Jim Becker]

As long as you're close to that .25" thickness or thinner, you should have no major issue gluing to a substrate such as MDF or BB. Personally, I'd use the MDF because it's more economical and generally very flat. If you sand the surface to be glued first, you should get an excellent bond, and becasue there's little movement with that substrait, a solid banding of reasonable narrowness around the whole assembly should also be trouble free.

[Charlie Fox]

thank you sir but "a solid banding of reasonable narrowness around the whole assembly should also be trouble free" not totally cklear on this - in other words keep the frame under 2" or so?

but my real issue is this - with cutting boards and earlier chessboards you glue up original strips, cut 90deg, then flip every other strip and glue again - thats fine and dandy for 1"+ stock but i just dont see glueing 8 strips under clamp pressure at 1/4" thickness. even with rockler panel clamps its buckle city..

so - instead of gluing strips together, i need to look to gluing the strips side by side onto the substrate. may take longer, but easy to align and all. i purposely made my outside strips 1/4" wider to allow for squaring adjustments later.

so with 9 boards available, i can experiment with the first and if worse comes to worse i can give it away or maybe get an hour of brisket cooked with it.

[Charlie Fox]

Mr. Becker:

please clarify:
"As long as you're close to that .25" thickness or thinner, you should have no major issue gluing to a substrate such as MDF or BB."

but obviously 1/4" of MDF/BB is too little, 3" overkill. 1/2"? 3/4" 1"? what would be the min? with 9 boards cost can be spread about easily, so thicker is not a deal breaker

[Mike Mason]

Just a week or two ago there was a thread on the same topic with many responses that goes into great depth and might answer your questions. If you haven't, check it out.

[Charlie Fox]

Just a week or two ago there was a thread on the same topic with many responses that goes into great depth and might answer your questions. If you haven't, check it out.

yeah i am pretty sure that post was me getting ripped for making a solid wood chess board wiith cross grain frame. gorgoueos as all get out but everyone said it would fail except a few that said it wouldnt and all in all i was told i had to listen only to the ones that said it would fail and because i questioned the science i was told i was an idiot. in a nut shell. so - i took it to heart with no hard feelings and am now making my next set of chessboards out of a thinner material glued to a substrate - just like the experts here have said i should have done in the beginning..


so i have my half panels resawed to ~3/8" - i have just spent an hour and 2 craft Texas beers sitting and staring at my project (who doesnt do that?) figuring out how to make a plywood base t-track clamping system to glue up the panels. got it nailed. my 36" Rockler panel clamps are just inviting trouble gluing up 1/4" thick panels 24" wide IMHO. your mileage may vary but i just recently got these clamps and they arent the easiest things to get perfect your first time. hell - even the Rockler staff said they used to offer a class in how to use them! i am not that dumb - but still.....i like my "in my head" design for a t-track clampoing system.

i am very confident that i can create perfect chessboard pattern - just want the BEST substrate and cost is not an issue - if its $50 for a quarter sheet/1 chess board then it goes in to the final price. the cost is justified in the quality.


so MDF? balltic birch? or old fashioned particle board? (hey a lot of pool tables are made from particle board so there must be someting to it)

titebond 3 or epoxy?

[John Kananis]

1) baltic birch is great stuff, mdf for weight.

2) folks aren't responding because you're not listening to reason. Your pieces are too thick and you'll have cracks. What's wrong with 1/16th? What do you achieve by using more material?

[Jim Becker]

Mr. Becker:

please clarify:
"As long as you're close to that .25" thickness or thinner, you should have no major issue gluing to a substrate such as MDF or BB."

but obviously 1/4" of MDF/BB is too little, 3" overkill. 1/2"? 3/4" 1"? what would be the min? with 9 boards cost can be spread about easily, so thicker is not a deal breaker

The .25" reference was for the solid stock thick veneer, not the substrate.

On your question about the edge banding, make it look proportional, but I'd likely stay below that 2" you ask about 'cause wood moves and miter the corners for the best look.

[Kent A Bathurst]

folks aren't responding because you're not listening to reason. Your pieces are too thick and you'll have cracks.

...that post was me getting ripped for making a solid wood chess board ...

....panels resawed to ~3/8"........2 craft Texas beers sitting and staring.......t-track clamping system........36" Rockler panel clamps.....1/4" thick panels.....

John's correct - You weren't getting ripped. You were getting disagreed with and made it personal, I'm sad to say. And annoyed some very good folks in the process.

I'll lead with my chin one last time:

You can continue to shrink the thickness, but wood doesn't negotiate, regardless of beer type or quantity. Jim said .25 or thinner. Get to no more than 1/8.

Put the clamping system, t-track, bench cookies, and all related stuff away. You don't use clamps on this task. The task is how to glue up shop-made veneer, not how glue up solid wood.

Get a roll of blue masking tape. Get some surface wood scraps of the proper dimensions to use for training. Get some T-III. Get some waxed paper.

Get some MDF or BB of whatever thickness you think it should be for the finished board to look how you want it to look.

Then read this instructional posting by Derek Cohen. Ignore the thickness of his boards and focus on the process. There are many web instructions that show exactly the same thing, but I knew were to find this one, so I grabbed it. Google "using shop-made veneer" or something like that.

Do as many test runs as you can until you use up the rest of the case of beer.

https://www.inthewoodshop.com/Furnit...outClamps.html


You want to make the full-sized veneer surface, which then gets attached to the substrate base.

Then get more beer and ponder how to glue that sucker to an over-sized base, how to trim the oversized base, and how to secure the border pieces.

[Charlie Fox]

1) baltic birch is great stuff, mdf for weight.

2) folks aren't responding because you're not listening to reason. Your pieces are too thick and you'll have cracks. What's wrong with 1/16th? What do you achieve by using more material?

yes i am listening to reason- thats why why i have resawed and i am here in the first place. and there was some drift in the resawing on a piece or two so by the time i plane it i will be below .25 - more like 1/8, one board may even have to be 1/16

but still no one has said what the best thickness is for the substrate. Jim thought i was thinking .25 but no, i realize he was talking about the stock, i would never consider a substrate that thin. so unless i hear otherwise 1" mdf should be fine

i am going to build a t-track table to clamp and glue the two halves (after planing), then its to the cross cut sled to cut the strips and flip every other one and glue to the mdf. i have read some comments around the interwebs where the substrate plywood curled on them, so i am thinking they just used a substrate not thick enough. i would think 1" mdf even with 1/4" veneer would hold up.

[John Kananis]

3/4 substrate (mdf) and 1/8 material will give you close to an inch. However, you must also veneer the back of the substrate or you're going to get warp in the board.

[Charlie Fox]

3/4 substrate (mdf) and 1/8 material will give you close to an inch. However, you must also veneer the back of the substrate or you're going to get warp in the board.

you are the first to mention this - hoping others agree. but lets take it to the extreme - if i glued 1/64" veneer to mdf i dont think it would warp. if i glued 1" "veneer" i think it would certainly warp - but again, there has to be a happy middle somewhere. if its 1/16" glued to 3/4 or 1" mdf it would it still warp you think?

[Jim Morgan]

Lots of good advice here. John TenEyck often uses shopsawn veneer - you might search for his posts to see how he deals with it.

If your chessboard squares will have grain running in different directions, you will be best off with a grainless substrate, i.e., mdf. ¾" or 1" thick is fine, depends on the look you are going for.

A corollary to my sig: use the right material for the application.