Cynthia White
Member
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I hope to inspire a good discussion here. I'm interested in making a special type of game board for an ancient game called "Go". A Go board has gridlines that look like this. Those little circles may or may not be included. My son plays competitively.
The old masters in Japan do it like this. They use some kind of blade that is coated in some kind of lacquer and rocked across the wood. I don't read Japanese......
So without going on and on about this interesting and ancient game. I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to do this, as getting these gridlines onto the board is going to be the most difficult part of the project. I have read everything I can find about this, but most of the people who are making these boards are not woodworkers, they are Go players and aren't using perhaps the best or most efficient methods.
Required:
1. The lines are a prescribed thickness and must be evenly spaced.
2. The lines are spaced a different amount in one direction as opposed to the other; they are wider in one orientation that the other.
3. The lines are thin, like 1mm
4. If they are cut in rather than drawn on, then they have to be filled so that when the board is finished the top is flat--you do not want to be able to *feel* the lines.
5. If lines are drawn on, I don't want them to bleed--initially *or* after it's finished (coated) with something.
6. I also need some kind of method that is reproducible so I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel every time I make a board like this.
I've been puzzling over this for a long time. Puzzling until my puzzler is sore (didn't the Grinch say that?). One thing I considered was having a permanent template made of gridlines cut into either metal or acrylic, laying it on top of the wood, and then....what? cutting it? drawing it? I also wondered if I could cut the lines in the top of the board, then flood it with dye, and sand off the surface, where the dye would remain only in the cut lines........
Tell me how you would approach this project. And I can't wait to hear what Ken C. is going to suggest.
Thank you.
The old masters in Japan do it like this. They use some kind of blade that is coated in some kind of lacquer and rocked across the wood. I don't read Japanese......
So without going on and on about this interesting and ancient game. I'd like to hear some suggestions on how to do this, as getting these gridlines onto the board is going to be the most difficult part of the project. I have read everything I can find about this, but most of the people who are making these boards are not woodworkers, they are Go players and aren't using perhaps the best or most efficient methods.
Required:
1. The lines are a prescribed thickness and must be evenly spaced.
2. The lines are spaced a different amount in one direction as opposed to the other; they are wider in one orientation that the other.
3. The lines are thin, like 1mm
4. If they are cut in rather than drawn on, then they have to be filled so that when the board is finished the top is flat--you do not want to be able to *feel* the lines.
5. If lines are drawn on, I don't want them to bleed--initially *or* after it's finished (coated) with something.
6. I also need some kind of method that is reproducible so I don't have to keep reinventing the wheel every time I make a board like this.
I've been puzzling over this for a long time. Puzzling until my puzzler is sore (didn't the Grinch say that?). One thing I considered was having a permanent template made of gridlines cut into either metal or acrylic, laying it on top of the wood, and then....what? cutting it? drawing it? I also wondered if I could cut the lines in the top of the board, then flood it with dye, and sand off the surface, where the dye would remain only in the cut lines........
Tell me how you would approach this project. And I can't wait to hear what Ken C. is going to suggest.
Thank you.