Daniel’s Backgammon Set

A few years ago when I made this project, I had a friend ask me to build a backgammon set. I thought that it wouldn’t be hard to get done, so I took up the offer even though at the time I was only 14 and still in school. As you can imagine, it took a long time to finish.

The construction of the box was rather easy. It was nothing more than building a frame, cutting it in two at the table saw, then gluing the top and bottom planks on. After I had the main box done, I cut some grooves around the edges for the purple heart trim. But where it got tricky was the interior. My friend wanted me to make it look like it came out of the 1800s. I knew I had to make thin planks of wood for the interior, and that I had to use double bevel marquetry to inlay the spikes on the game board. So after I inlay the spikes, I left the boards in my bench to warp a bit. This technique if you can call it a technique, worked out great. Before they warped anymore I glued them to the box leaving a good gap on all sides which I later filled with trim.

Once the box was built, I decided to go with a really old-looking stain which I applied real thick to give it a nice old look. I heard of all the ways using chains and stuff to make your project look old, but never really liked the end result. All I did was use a cotton cloth and rubbed on a heavy coat of stain, then after it dried I took my scraper and scraped off most of the stain. I’d never tried this technique before, and it seemed to come out perfectly. So I’d definitely recommend it.
In all, it turned out to be a really enjoyable project, although I probably won’t make it again, just because it takes a lot time to build.