For a Christmas gift I used a couple of contrasting chunks of wood to make a 12” x 12” chess board.
Below is a video and some pictures on how I built it. If you want a regulation one the squares would need to be 2” but I wanted to keep mine small.
I started out with a couple pieces of wood. One oak and one walnut. Then I cleaned up the edges and made sure they were square using the table saw.
Wood
Next I ripped the wood into 1.5” strips. Then I glued them up all the wood using the dark and light every other piece.
Pattern
After that I cross cut 1.5” strips.
Pattern
Then glue those strips together but flip every other row over. You want a 8 x 8 board.
8 x 8
After sanding and making sure it is square I added a maple boarder.
boarder
boarder
Then I finished with one coat of dewaxed shellac cut 1 to 1 with denatured alcohol. Then after that dried a bunch if thin coats of polyurethane sanding between each coat.
chess board
