Backgammon Board on a Budget

How I made a budget-conscious tournament-sized backgammon board. This is my first woodworking video so comments welcomed!
In the video I say that the wood is maple, but when I milled it up I realised one piece was (I think) chestnut. This is the material I ended up using - there's no maple anywhere in the project in the end!
The playing surface is 3 mm poly felt from Contrado, and was designed in Photoshop. Contrado are UK-based but I was very happy with their turnaround times, packaging etc. The surface plays very well but I don't know how it will stand up over time yet, and I haven't had to clean it:
www.contrado.c...
Checkers were from GammonVillage. One had a small defect but their customer service is very responsive and a replacement was sent. The checkers were reasonably priced but shipping was a bit steep for a small order - about $20. Available in a wide range of colours, these ones are Winter White and Cobalt:
www.gammonvill...
Precision dice were ordered from Carol at Flint BG:
www.flintbg.co...
Doubling cube came from Gammonstuff:
gammonstuff.co...
Very affordable, very good quality small box hinges from Amazon:
www.amazon.com...
1-3/4" cove bit from Amazon:
www.amazon.com...
Finished with Osmo Topoil:
www.amazon.com...

[@billyvonbimble7902]

Great video mate, thank you. I bet your friend was well chuffed. I've always fancied making my own tourny board, how hard could it be I thought? Blimmin hard is the answer! Good work.

[@ModoBro]

very nice board. The nail varnish caught me by surprise though

[@rezasaljooghi9650]

thank you man that was nice . good job

[@renrieu]

thank you for taking the time to do this video, it is really helpful and informative. Did you by any chance do any plans for this? or is it something that you might be thinking about?

[@LittleBabyDinosaur]

Thanks! Unfortunately I don’t really do that (as I don’t work from plans), but let me know if you have any specific questions

[@huberthicks9080]

Nicely done. Keep it up.

[@thamiosmgtow3678]

Like. And I share with this video in my social media about backgammon.

[@paullombardo2476]

Nice Job and well done specially for your first go at it. (video wise I mean) Surely not a first go at woodworking. If I could pass along a tip that I think would help you out it would be when you are doing your big checker cove. To make it go a little faster/easier I suggest when you are doing your dado steps earlier and have a blade set up on saw you make a deep pass down center of coved piece depth to be just shy of finished depth then increment over width of blade and lower blade so outer edge of blade it just shallow of finished cove depth then flip board end for end to make a third pass that mirrors the 2nd one then repeat again lowering blade and repeating previous step then make those 2 passes and by now you should have most of the waste material removed and just a few passes with your cove bit should clean it all up. There is also a technique to make a cove on a tablesaw by passing your piece diagonally across the blade by clamping a board down on table on each side of the piece being cut then slowly keep raising blade to get to your final depth and the angle you skewed your blade creates the cove width. This is an old school way of doing it before routers got beefy enough to compete with a shaper. Feel free to reach out if you want more insights to these techniques and I see we share a mutual friendship in Bob Kamp who I play backgammon with here in the Chicago area.

[@LittleBabyDinosaur]

Many thanks for watching and thank you for this tip. Getting rid of most of the material with the dado blade first is a great idea which will save time and also save wear on the cove bit. I've tried cove-cutting on the table saw and couldn't get a good result... maybe I'll give it another go sometime! If I'm ever in Chicago hopefully we can get a game in!

[@michaelharris4218]

Thank you! I will let you know how my project goes! Hope to have one done by xmas 2023

[@simonmurauer2259]

Nice work!! Want to try it as well and think your video helps a lot :)

[@curtispfaffle2217]

Awesome job on the board! And awesome video! I enjoyed it. Would you be interested in making a board for me? It would be very, very, easy/simple. I only want a board like the earth board. No built in trays. Just the two halves to play on. And I would provide the surface and checkers.

[@clapwithme]

Great video! Is that a 3HP saw?

[@10bc-tenerifebackgammonclub]

Great stuff. I make my own boards as well.

[@geoffwilliams6013]

Hi this is great, how did you design your felt? Also hope you dont mind me asking was the felt expensive

[@borgeman]

Nice job! Any chance of getting a working link for the Contrado site? The one in the description is cut off and wont work.

[@michaelharris4218]

Hi - What was the width of the checker tray 6" x ? I imagine it must be just about 2' to 2 1/4". Trying to ensure my sides are the correct distance. I have made my own board using cherry, black walnut, and sapele.

[@harrysmith1852]

It's actually a little wider than that, to accommodate the height of the dice cups - about 2.75". In my first board (which you can see at about 6:30 in the video I used a different orientation, and the checker tray there was 2.5" wide (the height of 5 of those checkers). But 2.5" is too short for a dice cup, so in the board I make in this video the tray is a bit wider. If you're orienting the checkers lengthwise with the cups sideways, as in this video, I would start by deciding on the height you want your dice cups to be (or obtaining them first if you are purchasing them), and use that for your measurements. Lovely species of wood to use for your board! Good luck.

[@AlanDraper7169]

Great job... makes me want to give it a try. What's the advantage of making on box and slicing in half vs making two boxes?

[@LittleBabyDinosaur]

Thanks! If you were making two separate frames you'd be working with fairly thin pieces which are harder to clamp square, and if they have any slight differences after glue-up then the two halves won't match up exactly. This way is a bit hair-raising when you're cutting it in half but it means the two halves match up exactly.

[@denisivanov6106]

Wood is capricious and its "behaviour" depends on many factors. In order to avoid wood transformation you'd better make a box and let it rest for a while. Thus the sides adjust better and you will avoid unplesant surprises.

[@michaelmitchell8567]

You need to make more videos!

[@kodrh]

You should sell me one 😬

[@AleksaNikoletic971]

Can you tell me what thickness of plywood did you use for the backs and what thickness is the frame? I am starting to build my own board and this is a great video, very helpful

[@LittleBabyDinosaur]

The backs use 1/4” ply (from Home Depot so not a true 1/4”… slightly less). The frame is 5/8”

[@michaelharris4218]

What are the size of the checkers? 1 3/4 or 2"

[@LittleBabyDinosaur]

These are 1-3/4” checkers… there’s a link to the checkers in the description

[@chrisrowley833]

jeez .. Ebay is full of unwanted boards for £20

[@billyvonbimble7902]

Yeah, pokey boards, full of crumbs & pubic hair. You can't get a tourny board for less than a coupla hundred quid!