Chinese Checker Boards finished just with Wax

Frank Pellow

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Toronto, Ontario, CANADA
(part 1 of 7)

Background Note 1:

Many of you know that, for the last few months, I have been doing very little woodworking. Rather, I (along with a few former Hearst Public School students) have been involved in story gathering, story writing, story editing, photo gathering, photo editing, and layout for a book and DVD to be launched at the first ever reunion of Hearst Public School this summer. I am happy to say that (as of two days ago) the book has now been printed and the DVD has been manufactured.

01 Front Cover.jpg 03 Clayton's Kids DVD label.jpg

We have had 600 copies of the book printed. I fully expect to sell out in no less time than 6 months and to require a second printing. Any proceeds for the sale of the book and DVD will be donated to the school (now renamed in honour of Clayton Brown, the longserving principal of Hearst Public School). We will also be holding a silent auction at the reunion in order to raise money. Three of the items being auctioned are these pens that we commissioned from Mack Cameron:

05 Clayton's Kids -pens for the silent auction.JPG

Mack made these pens from poplar that he "rescued" from the woodpile on Pellow's Island north of Hearst when he visited last September.

I have volunteered to make two Chinese Checker boards for the auction, and late last week I finally found the time to get started on them,

Background Note 2:

While working with Dan Clermont at the Ultimate Tools booth at the Toronto Woodworking Show last February, I was introduced to a new way (to me) of finishing wood. Dan purchased a piece of Bubinga and invited folks to sand it up the 4000 grit using a Festool Rotex sander. The results astounded me. I had real trouble believing that the wood had no finish at all on it ?rather it had been polished to a sheen via the sanding process.

I decided to finish the Chinese Checker boards this way.
 
(part 2 of 7)

Making the Boards:

The raw input was the roughsawn cherry and walnut boards shown below:

07 -Rough sawn cherry and walnut boards.JPG

The first step was to run each of the boards through a jointer in order to get one flat edge and one flat side with a square corner between them:

09 -Jointer to get one square corner.JPG

The boards were next run through a planer in order to obtain uniform thickness:

11 -Planer to get uniform thickness.JPG

Then, each board was sawn to an even width:

13 -Sawn to even width -small.JPG

The next step was the cut up the cherry boards to approximately their final length then to glue and clamp them together:

15 -Cherry bords were cut to approximate size then glued and clampedl.JPG
 
(part 3 of 7)

The assembled cherry panels were cut to their final width using an Incra sled on my table saw:

17 -The assembled cherry panels were cut to their final width using an Incra sled on my table sa.JPG

Next, it was time to work on the walnut plank. Pieces of walnut are going to be attached to each of the long sides of the cherry panel. The first step is to cut a section of the walnut plank slightly longer than the cedar panel:

19 -Cutting a piece of the walnut plank to length.JPG

This section was then cut into four equal width strips. The strips were clamped together and sanded with my Festool Rotex in aggressive mode with 50 grit paper in order to make them of uniform thickness:

21 -Sanding clamped walnut strips.JPG

Next, two walnut strips were glued and clamped to each of the cherry panels:

23 -Gluing the walnut strips to the cherry panels.JPG
 
(part 4 of 7)

Dowels to match the colour of the cherry but to contrast with the walnut are now inserted into each of the cherry boards through each of the walnut side pieces then sawn off flush with the walnut:

25 -Drilling holes for dowels.JPG 27 -Sawing the dowels flush.JPG

The ends were trimmed off on the table saw, then all the top edges were rounded over on the router table:

29 -Timming the ends -small.JPG 31 -Rounding the top corners on router table.JPG
 
(part 5 of 7)

I encountered a problem when routing the end of one of the boards:

33 -A problem arose when routing one end of one of the boards.JPG

I had goofed when gluing up the panels and had placed a somewhat "punky" and, therefore, chipable, streak extending to a portion of the side of one of the cherry boards at the outside edge:

I trimmed the split end again then re-rounded it very carefully -this time there was no crack but some of the wood at the edge was still very porous and likely to be damaged. The punky wood was with of few drops penetrating and quick drying Hot Stuff glue:

35 -The punky wood was stabilizedwith of few drops penetrating and quick drying Hot Stuff glue.JPG

This worked very well and the wood hardened. The wood with the glue was quite a bit darker, but there are many shades and patterns in the wood and, after the wood has been polished and waxed, I was confident that it would blend in well.

Three grooves to hold marbles were routed into each of the boards using a "core box bit" and these grooves were tested for length with the actual marbles that wiil be used when playing Chinese Checkers:

37 -Grooves to hold marbles routed into each of the boards.JPG 39 -Grooves tested for lengthl.JPG

Notice how blocks of wood have been clamped to the fence on the router table. These serve as start and stop blocks when routing the grooves.

Next a Plexiglas template was clamped to in the appropriate position on the board and a special drill bit was inserted into my electric drill.

41 -Template clamped to a board -small.JPG

I purchased the template and the drill bit at Rockler a few years ago and this is about the 6th time that they have been used.
 
(part 6 of 7)

After drill all the holes and carefully removing the template, small hills dust and chips made this pattern on the board:

43 -Dust and chips left after template removed.JPG

Next came the most important part of the job. Both boards were sanded with a progression of sandpapers and polishing pads using a Festool Rotex 150 sander.

47 -Sandpaper and polishing  pads front.JPG 49 -Sandpaper and polishing  pads back.JPG

The list below outlines the papers used and the approximate duration of use for each per board:

Rubin 50 -30 seconds
Rubin 80 -2 minutes
Rubin 120 -4 minutes
Rubin 150 -4 minutes
Brilliant 180 -6 minutes
Brilliant 220 -8 minutes
Brilliant 400 -4 minutes
Platin 500 -4 minutes
Platin 1000 -4 minutes
Platin 2000 -2 minutes
Platin 4000 -2 minutes

The grooves and holes had to be sanded by hand:

51 -Hand sanding the grovesl.JPG

Starting with the Platin steps, the effects were dramatic as the the wood took on an ever increasing sheen. The picture below contrasts a polished board with an unsanded and unpolished one.

53 -Constrasting boardsl.JPG
 
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(part 7 of 7)

The final step was to apply paste wax, let it dry then buff it for about 15 minutes using the Rotex sander in polishing mode and equipped with a sheepskin pad.

55 -Applying paste wax to polished board.JPG 57 -Buffing the wax.JPG

Some of the leftover cherry wood was used to make a marble holding compartment on the underside of the board:

59 -Cutting parts for marble box.JPG

Also, a set of non-skid feet were installed and I branded the boards on the underside with my name and year of construction:

61 -Completed boards -back of one. front of other -small.JPG


Playing a game:

Here a test game is being played on one the new boards:

63 -A game is underway.JPG

By the way, I lost this particular game to my 7 year old grandson Ethan.


To come:

All that remains is to see how well the boards fare at the auction.
 
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