Hi Everybody! I'm Mike McCrory
and this is Wood U Make It. In this video I make a travel chess board
that folds up and is held together with magnets. I actually made the board two years ago during the height of COVID-19 and when I was reviewing the video footage I was surprised by how many things have evolved in the last two years, both in my workshop and in my processes, so I'll point some of those things out as we go along. So... let's get started! This piece of curly maple is wider than my 8"
jointer so I'm going to start by jointing the edge to get a nice straight edge and then I'll
run it through my table saw to take off a strip. I wouldn't normally run a large board like this
through the jointer because it's quite difficult to handle but I'm doing it to get just one
nice long strip that I can use for edge banding and then I'll cut the board down to
a shorter length and joint it again. Now I'm running it through the table saw
to get that one strip that I can use for the edge banding. Nowadays I would use my
large bandsaw for this but two years ago I didn't even have the Laguna 18 inch bandsaw.
I had ordered it but it had not arrived yet. I also had not made my miter saw station yet so
I'm using my Ridgid sliding compound miter saw, which I really like, but I don't use it
in my workshop anymore. I've switched to a Delta saw because it doesn't require
any room in the back for the sliding rails. Now that I have a more manageable length,
I will joint the face and one of the edges. That door that's behind my jointer is no longer there.
I removed it last year and re-drywalled. My office is on the other side
of that wall and I was getting scared of snakes that would occasionally crawl in under
the door and surprise me in the morning. The curly maple is going to be
used for the chessboard squares and then I have a couple of pieces of
sapele that are going to be used for the dark squares as well as the
frame that goes around the board. Next I'll plane all the boards
down to be the same thickness. Next, on my table saw, I'll cut all the boards to
be the appropriate width to get 2-1/4" squares and also for the frame. I'll cut the curly maple and
sapele into 20 inch lengths so that I can glue them up for the first
glue-up for the chessboard squares. Two years ago I didn't have the clamping fixtures
that I use for clamping my chess boards nowadays, so it was more challenging to get this clamped
together and to ensure that it remains flat. Now I'll cut these into 2-1/4" widths
and prepare for the second glue-up. You might think that I would glue up the
entire chess board at this point and then cut it in half but that would result in
the two rows of squares in the middle not being square anymore because the blade
would take about 1/16" off each side, so I'm gluing up four rows and then
I'll glue up the other four rows. I'm going to fit the frame onto the
chessboard with tongue and groove joinery so I'm cutting the tongue on the frame pieces now. Now I'm cutting the groove in
the chess board on three sides. The reason I'm not using plywood for this
type of a chessboard is because the middle will be exposed when it's separated so
I'm using solid wood all the way through. Next I'll cut a groove in the outside edge of the
frame pieces and this is to hold the edge banding. I flip the board around and make
a second cut and that ensures that the groove is always in the center of the board. The chess board is going to have a
brass border around the playing field so I'm going to cut a rabbet in
the frame pieces to hold the brass and I want to make sure that I don't cut too
deep or too wide, so I will sneak up on the fit. Each time I make a pass I test for the fit
to make sure that the brass is flush with the edge of the frame and if it's
not I'll adjust the fence inward. Here I'm sanding the brass to make sure
that it will adhere well to the glue. Nowadays I would use a random orbit
sander to sand the brass very quickly. Here I'm using epoxy to glue in the brass
and that's something I would not do anymore. It's not that I don't like epoxy. It has its
uses and I'll be using it later on in this video, but it's not ideal for gluing in brass because
it takes so long to cure and it's a little bit messy to handle. So, nowadays I would use CA glue
to glue in the brass because it's almost instant and I don't have to wait
eight hours to continue working. You can see with the epoxy I have to clamp it with
tape and let it sit for several hours whereas with CA glue there's no clamping required because
of the accelerator. It just bonds instantly. After the epoxy cured overnight now
I'm going to glue in the edge banding. After the glue is dried I will
trim off the excess edge banding. Next I'll work on the mitered corners and
then I'll test the fit around the board. For the two short pieces that go
midway to the center of the board, I'll cut those off with a 90
degree angle using my chop saw. I'll use mortise and tenon joinery for
the corners of the chessboard frame, so I'm marking the positions of the tenons and
then I'll go cut the mortises with my router. Now I'll glue up the frame on both halves
of the chessboard and let it cure overnight. I have a 90 degree v-bit in the CNC router and
that's going to put a 45 degree bevel between each of the squares and between the squares
and the brass border around the outside edge. The two halves of the board are going to
be held together with rare earth magnets so I'm marking the center of each magnet and
then I'll drill the holes with a Forstner bit. I'm lightly sanding the surface of
each magnet to ensure a good bond and then I'll glue them in place with CA glue. I'm keeping the magnets in a stack to
make sure that I orient them properly, so the three magnets on one half are going top
down and then I'll flip the stack over and put the remaining three in the other way around so the
magnets will attract rather than repel each other. Then I'm going to put some magnets
on the bottom as well and that way when the board is folded it will hold together. Now with a 30 degree v-bit, I'm
carving the algebraic notation and I'll fill it with black epoxy. Since there's a 45 degree bevel on the brass, I need to use sandpaper to sand out
the marks left by the router bit. Then I'll do a final sanding with 320-grit
sandpaper. You may have difficulty keeping track of what sanding disc you have after
you've used it a few times because the pre-printed sanding grit number will wear off
pretty quickly, so I like to write the grit number with a Sharpie in the middle of the disc
and that way it remains visible for its lifetime. Now I'm using this Merlon pad to polish the brass.
That's equivalent to using 1500-grit sandpaper. This is when the board starts to really look
nice. This is only water that I'm rubbing onto the board to help raise the grain and then I'll
do a final sanding before I apply the finish. The client wanted to have his logo on the
bottom of the board so I'm burning that in with my laser. It's always a little scary for me
to do that because you don't get a second chance. If you make a mistake with a laser you've
got to sand it completely out and try again. Now I'm applying a coat of de-waxed to shellac and then I'll take it outside to
spray with pre-catalyzed lacquer. To get a nice matte finish
I'm using that same Merlon pad underneath my random orbit
sander to dull down the finish. So I gotta ask... would YOU make it?
