What a beautiful application of sapwood and a natural edge.


wrote in message
...
On Jul 6, 10:41 pm, "barry712" wrote:
I have a very good friend who runs a gallery in Gatlinburg, TN who wants
me
to make him a very nice, and rather large, chessboard. I'm thinking the
squares will be something like 5". His chess pieces will be comic book
action figures about 8" tall. I will turn a 4" round base for each of
these. I'm guessing the board itself will be glued up of squares of
maple/cherry or maple/walnut. I'm thinking some simple inlay work may
help
to dress up the board.

Does anyone have any advice/plans/ideas on how I should proceed? I have
some concerns that the board will simply be too large to "look right".
If
the board is composed of 64 - 5" squares, that means it will be 40" X
40",
plus it really should have a border or 5" or 6". To me, a four (4') foot
chessboard is not too practical. But it is more a display for the action
figures than it is a board for playing chess. Comments please. Thanks.

Something I have done in the past is to make a raised grid over the
squares,
sort of like window mullions. I have the pieces fit a bit tighter
into the squares
than normal so it doesn't make the board much larger, you still get
the same
spacing between the pieces. Mine were just flat, but with this large
of a board
you could have a small molding (256 pieces mitered at both ends,
yikes!) to
break up the large board. The profile could match the profile on your
turned
bases.

http://krtwood.com/images/chess/chess01.jpg

In this case the grid was necessary to cover the edges of the bark,
it's actually
a T shaped piece that is glued into slots in the plywood base.

You don't necessarily have to do a wide frame, you can also go tall.
Gives a
similar massive look without the extra width.

If I ever do another chess set it's going to be for me, and someone
else can have
it when I am worm food. Too much freaking work.


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