Little Project

[Two Much]

I wanted to lighten up my coffee table top. I liked the chessboard cause
it had light wood in it (maple). the coffee table top is mahogany from
a drive by tossed desk that we adopted. The chessboard is maple, QS
white oak, and walnut. These were both made several years ago.

The dragon fly handles were plant spikes. We cut off the spikes on the two
that we used for the tray. We left the spike on the one in the potted arrangement.

[gerti]

You have been at this forum long enough to know that this is our highest form of praise:

You suck!

Very nicely done, sir! And who is the handsome fellow in photo #3?

[Two Much]

Thanks Gerti, all the look sees and no comments, I was beginning to think it looked
stupid or at best overload. BTW, I'm not a sir, I'm the feminine part of the two much team...
I dream up all these projects and the head guy makes them come true.

Besides doing all the designing, I do the finishing (and some sanding too)
I struggle with getting my ideas on paper, as I can't do shop drawings, only
paper cut-outs. The first bird cage we made, I cut out the whole thing in
oak tag and glued it together. But hey, it worked...

The pooch is our grandpuppy Max...he spends a lot of time at our house.
follows me around all day.

This is a pic of my cutting board, it's the visual aid that I needed to see
how a light tray would look on the table...Max is under the table.
Thanks again, Joann

[leehljp]

My mind is in "overload" seeing all of the fine work in one picture. I like the way you repurposed the dragon flies into handles! I think most of us see and collect things that we "know" can be used somewhere, but just have trouble figuring out where to use it! I know I do!

AS to the chess board. Several people here have made chess boards over the past several years. In all of them, and including yours, - my mind goes to - the way wood moves. When I have made things like that, even with ages old dried wood, I get wood movement cracks that shows up with different wood types mixed together, and especially when laid cross grain to one another. I can understand it with veneer, but solid blocks set cross grain to each other - fight each other when I do it. Well done!

And a repurposed desk top! Beautiful Finish too.

[Two Much]

Thanks Lee, I know what you mean about wood movement. We have two brunch tables in our family room.
They are cross grained wood. One table held up great, absolutely no movement, the other gets some
movement on one section of it. I show these tables in another thread (for discussion purposes)

I can't remember when we made the chessboard. More than twelve years ago for sure ... I think we got lucky
with the chessboard. I've seen a couple that had the shrinkage and separation that you mentioned.

I just took this pic. The brass knob is because I was originally planning to make a box underneath to
house the checkers...but changed my mind and made feet underneath to raise it up to a floating
chessboard.

As I have already said, we got lucky with this wood. We bought it at the mill and dove in head first.

[leehljp]

Did you make the chess pieces also?

[Two Much]

No, our son bought it for us.

[Pappy]

A couple of very sharp looking projects!

[Two Much]

Thanks Pappy. We so much enjoy all these projects. So many things take us a long time
cause we make so many changes along the way. As we build thing we keep adding
and adding to it. (actually, the head guy calls it -- the Joann changes along the way )

Right now we're making a little table for the corner of the living room.
It only going to be 7 1/2" X 9 1/2" and 26" H. So we have it all cut and tied together
with bungi cord for the look see...One bungi cord is red, so I said, that red bungi cord
looks good, maybe we should put a piece of red molding on the top, or somewhere on it?
Here we go again...

[poolhound]

All really nice work. I very much like the chessboard.

A chessboard is on my way to long list of future projects. On the whole solid vs ply discussion I have in mind a hybrid approach. My minds eye plan would be to start with a quality apple or BB ply and then make my own 'thick' veneer to add to the top. For example using 1/2 ply with a veneer layer of 3/32-1/8 it should work out quite well and allow the use of some interesting boards with the stability of ply. A least that is my theory :-)

[Two Much]

Jon, I know nothing about veneers...I can tell you that he followed the way that David Marks did it.
With solid wood. It was before Tivo, so we had to go by memory. Maybe if you do a tube search you
can find it. I can tell you there is absolutely no movement in the wood.

[Two Much]

Hank and others...as discussed above ...putting cross grain wood together can be a challenge.
We made the tops of our brunch tables in all leftover QS and rift sawn oak that was leftover
from our kitchen build.
We did these tables about 8 or 9 years ago. As you can see the four squares in the center
around the cross are in two pieces (each) glued together. The four surround ends are in one
piece. The only issue we had was with the table on the right...the one front end piece opened up,
and the opening was size able. . A few years ago I suggested we saw through it at the opening
and reglue it. It worked well. There is a very slight opening, but unless I point it out, it's
not visible. The head guy keeps his laptop on that table, so it's really not visible at all.
I guess we got lucky with this build.

I took the pics a few minutes ago...BTW, these tables take a beating to heck and back
with seven grandkids and two grandpuppies -- and there is not a scratch on them. They play on them,
eat on them, sit on them... i can clearly state that you can't beat QS oak for durability.
We made our kitchen table with walnut and re-finished the top twice because of
little scratches ( and I'm very careful with the kitchen table, I always use place mats
etc..I took a pic of the split. The last pic is one of our rug rats, also known as "sits like a bird."

This is the left one (on the left) this is the right one (the one that opened up)

[cwsmith]

Very nice. I too especially like the chess board, as I've had a long time passion for such things. The tray you made with the little dragon fly handles is really nice, and I think you have a knack for such little embellishments that are just plain "class", like the table you posted a few months ago with the humming bird.

I looked at the pictures you post, and paid some attention to the background. There's something of interest and craftsmanship in almost every object I see. A very nice place I think that reflects something appealing, a very warm home with personality.

Someday, when all the utility work work is past, I'd love to take a crack at building a chess board as well as the chess pieces. I haven't played in over a decade, as there's really no one in my life that plays the game. Probably just as well as I'm only a fair player anyway, but there is just something about it that I'd like to make and if successful, I'd love to do make a few sets for gifts to others.

I really appreciated your post,

CWS

[Two Much]

Thanks cw...I'm going to tell the head guy what you said, I drive him crazy
with details.
As far as chess goes, Perhaps you can teach someone to play chess.
My hubby taught our kids to play chess at five years old. We have five grandsons
and he taught all of them starting them at five or six years old. He started
them by playing without his queen and one rook. Then when he got way ahead,
he would turn the board around, and let them continue playing with his pieces,
so that they would have the advantage. He also said, after turning the board
around he would have to play his heart out.

The three older grandsons are very good chess players, two of them really love
the game and now very hard to beat. The two younger ones, enjoy playing, especially
the little I have perched on the table.

Our oldest grandson is entering law school in August. When he went for his interview
they asked him what his Hobbies were. He said Chess...and told them all about
the method his Grandpa used to teach him to play chess when he was five years old.
He also said, he never knew when he was little -- that sometimes his Grandpa let him
win...he figures that out when he was a young teenager... and asked, Grandpa, sometimes
you let me win when I was little, right? He said, the interviewer loved the story.

He doesn't let them win anymore...now the students beat the Master!

[cwsmith]

Thanks Too Much,

That was an interesting way that your husband used to teach chess.

I taught our son to play and our grandson. Jason (our son) is a big "board gamer" even today (he's 47 now), but we rarely get together to play. I guess he's too busy. Dimitri, our grandson, is now 16 and he's heavily into robotics and the sciences. (He's been on a couple of competitive "robotic" teams and in his new school they're competing on a National level now.

Dimitri and I played when he was really young (I taught him when he was four, as I did with Jason), but neither is into such things anymore. While I love the technology today, it seems that both young and old are too caught up in "electronics". While neat, it's sad in too many ways.

I'm beginning to wonder where our large library, my tools, Patty's kitchen equipment, cookbooks, and other things are going to end up... not a lot of interest by anyone in our family for such archaic things.

CWS