building a board

I'm making my own backgammon board.

Step one... get the pieces.

step two... build a board that fits them.

I'd never really consider myself to be a craftsman, but I'd like to have a go, and hopefully, make a decent fist of this.



Each point (the triangles) will be 50mm wide at it's base, and 200mm long. There are 24 points, 6 in each quarter of the board. So the interior dimensions of each half of the board will be 300mm from edge to bar, and either 450 or 500mm top to bottom depending on how spacious I want to make it.

The surround will be 30mm thick, giving a 60mm wide bar. space needs to be given to store pieces and dice etc. This will be 50mm for the pieces, and 30mm each side, giving an overall space of 110mm. The overall dimensions of the board will therefore be 440mm x 450 or 500mm folded, and 880mm x 450 or 500mm when open.

Materials?

Well the main board would be probably just simple plywood or MDF. This would be covered in a felt baize, or leather,  or some other fabric, or even some kind of latex spray. One guy at the Liverpool events has a board made of painted and varnished chipboard, and the dice bounce off all over the place, so it needs to be softened somehow.

I'm thinking of using driftwood to create the surround, but a nice posh wood like mahogany or walnut would be cool. Perspex would be unique too, although it might be difficult to work with without it getting scratched.

Fittings such as hinges and latches would be brass, although pretty much anything would do. The whole thing would be covered in leather or vinyl or even something more sturdily industrial like aluminium.

So that's the plan.

I need to figure out how to connect the ply of the board to it's surround. Presumably a groove in the surround that the board fits into. The board would therefore need to be slightly bigger (a few millimetres in each direction). Alternatively, the surround could be slightly stepped, and the board would sit on top of the slightly wider bit. The surround has corners that will have to be dovetailed or mortice and tenonned (if that's a word) or just glued I suppose. Depending on materials used on the playing surface, I may have to stitch fabric, or parquet thin slivers of different coloured woods,  or precisely glue precisely shaped bits of felt or other fabric.

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