Chess Boards for folding case design

The chess boards for our folding case design are now built using spline joints. I’ve used tongue & groove joints before but grooves & splines are easier since I don’t have to deal with the extra width needed for the tongues. This method is key since the aesthetic design calls for using black dye on the walnut strips and bleach on the maple strips, creating more dramatic contrast than the natural tones can provide, while retaining the visibility of the grain. Using water-based dye is also easier to work with and doesn’t interfere with the wood glue. The spline joints align the each piece and keep them flat and clean during glue-up since we can’t do any sanding to smooth things out later.
After the first glue up, the boards are cut across the strips to build the checkerboard pattern. To make sure this cut matches the width of the original strips (for 1-7/8” squares in this case), I use a Magswitch featherboard with its micro adjustments screws, to position the table saw fence, instead of the old “bump & tap” technique.
More grooves are cut into the new strips so they can be splined & glued into their final pattern, two halves for each set. The final detail is a 45-degree chamfer cut on each of the long edges. These edges will fit against matching chamfers in the case frame to create a tight miter joint between the board and the case so that the two halves come together seamlessly when the case is opened.

[@TonyCalrisiain]

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