Sometimes students will stay in my classroom after school to play chess. Our paper chess board was warped and didn’t lay very flat which was a problem…
I found an old piece of hardboard paneling in the back of my classroom that was about the right size and happened to already be partially covered in silver spray paint. I also had one of my students available to help me with the design!
Because of the repetitive design of the chessboard, this project was a great opportunity for us to play with the “Array Copy” feature of VCarve Pro / Partworks…
The idea was to pocket out half of the squares on the board and to profile the other half so that we would have an alternating pattern. Our final tool paths looked like this:
And our 3D preview showing tabs…
The hardboard panel was too large and thin to be held in place using wedges alone so I ended up putting a screw into a corner of the material to help hold it in place. The was a lot of sawdust left in the machine because the motor for my old shop-vac just burned out… I was able to find a nice replacement 5 gallon wet/dry unit for about $40 at a local discount store.
A closer look at the surface of the finished chessboard…
The darker outside surface of the panel contrasted very nicely with the freshly cut out pockets (even without the paint)! The “High Contrast/Dynamic Range” filter on my student’s smartphone camera made the silver surface appear black in the photo…
All cleaned up and ready to go!…
Pieces all set-up and ready to play!…
My students have been using this board regularly after school and they like it so much that one of them wants to make a travel sized version in acrylic… he is also planning to make up some travel sized chess pieces.
So what have you been doing with your ShopBot?
All the best,
Jack
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