Making a 64-Piece Circle Game Board with Finger Joint Joints

These pieces were a little bit wide so I just had to trim off one Edge to make sure that everything was even with the width of the fingers after that I did a test fit just to make sure that everything was right before I started gluing anything up. I wanted the grid here to actually sit below the top edge of the wood just a little bit so I put some spacers underneath it when I put it upside down.

I added glue to all the fingers and then started wrapping it around the game board and then I realized that I hadn't put any glue in between the board and the frame itself. Luckily it all stayed in place while I added some glue to the outside of the plywood and then set it all together before clamping it up. Once it was partially clamped I flipped it over so that I could make sure that the spacers were giving me an even spacing on all four sides of the game board.

I use my CNC to cut out the 64 Circle game pieces but if you don't have one you could use a scroll saw or a band saw. But it's going to be a lot of work. I quickly tell you about the sponsor and that is Kao and they make these awesome silicone wedding bands if you're into Athletics or you work with your hands you definitely want to get one of these because they are more comfortable and safer than your metal band they're safer because it will Rip before your finger rips and that's important be sure to go check them out Korring.com.

The pieces were all done but I needed a way to hold them underneath the game board and to do this I made another box almost identical to the one that I had already made. I started by measuring the inside of the bottom of this box then I follow basically the same process as before I didn't even have to change anything about the finger joint jig it was still all set up to make the same size fingers.

I used Maple instead of Walnut for the surround and for the plywood I used 1/2 in instead of 3/4 just to cut down on weight and give me a little bit more interior space. My saw tends to burn Maple a little bit more so I had quite a bit more sanding to do on these pieces to get them back to their natural color but then I just went through the exact same process glued everything up and clamped it and waited for it to dry.

When you make finger joints it's good to make them a little bit long that way you can sand them back and get them nice and flush. A Disc Sander is the best way that I found to do that. I added some more epoxy to completely cover the surface and used a heat gun to bring the bubbles up to the surface so that they would pop be sure not to get the heat gun too close or you'll actually cause more bubbles.

While the epoxy cured I sprayed on a few light coats of spray lacquer onto all the game pieces. I did this in my brand new paint booth which I made a video about recently. Spray lacquer dries really quickly so I added a few coats flipped them all over and added a few more coats to the other side.

The bottom side of the Box needed to be finished up the same way as the top so I sanded off the extra fingers and then used an orbital sander to get rid of any extra glue squeeze out and get all of the surfaces nice and smooth. I keep a little Lazy Susan around for doing things like finishing and painting in this case I was using some tongue oil finish which is a polyurethane and tongue oil mixture.

The tongue oil in this mixture really makes the grain pop no matter what kind of wood you're using and the polyurethane adds a nice protective coat. Usually when I use this finish I'll do about two coats and that seems to be plenty. Really love the way this stuff makes walnut look after a couple of coats drying a couple hours each.

This game was finished overall super happy with how this thing came out especially the pieces they turned out great even though they were a huge amount of work. The epoxy on the top not so crazy about it but it does work all right and I'm really happy that on the inside there is more than enough storage so you could actually put some other stuff some decks of cards or things in here there's plenty of room even after putting all the pieces in.

That's it for this one guys let me know what you think about it down in the comments below. I've also got my Social Links down there if you want to find me on Instagram Twitter all that stuff. If you want to see that quto video that I was talking about it's right here and I've got a lot of other videos for you to check out. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new project thanks for watching I'll see you next time

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm Bob at I like to make steps today we're going to make athow or reversi depending on where you live over the past couple of years I've made a couple tabletop games the most recent one was quto which you can check out right here and while I was doing that one AOW came up as a game that would be really fun to make specifically because I would have to figure out how to make these pieces that were two different materials as per usual I didn't really plan ahead on this I just kind of started making it and I figured it out as I went along so let's get into it using my band saw I resaw some wood both Maple and walnut down to strips of about an eighth of an inch thick I did several strips of each type of wood and then I laid them all out and added glue I made sure to spread the glue around and get as much coverage as possible between the two pieces of wood because I'm going to cut the pieces for the game out of these strips I glued up one pair of boards and then added a strip of tape and this is really just to keep some separation in between the different sets of boards in case there's any glue leakage they won't all get glued together once I had all these pieces done I used clamps to make one big stack of them so they would all get clamped at the same time some strips were longer than others so I just trimmed off the extra on the miter saw then I moved on to making the game board I cut a piece of plywood down to 12 in square then I lowered the blade and moved the fence over so when I ran the board over the blade it just cut the blad's width off the outside edge I spun it around all four times and get this little lip I figured out the size of the squares that I wanted on my game board and moov the fence over that amount I ran it through four times spinning it 90° each time I followed the same procedure just moving the fence over making all the cuts moving the fence over making all the cuts and eventually I cut the center lines I made two cuts for this with one turn in between I ended up with a nice even grid to frame this out I cut several 1-in strips of the same material on the first piece I cut the miters a little bit long and then went back and trm them until they were a perfect fit once I had one that fit perfectly on the side I used it as a reference point to cut the other three exactly the same this helps them to all fit really really snugly around the outside of the board and always match up in the corners I set up some clamps and glued up all the side pieces it's really important that you add glue not only to the sides that are touching the game board but also to the corners so that all the joints are nice and strong after I let these set up for a while I took it all out of the clamps and then I needed to fill the gaps in the game board itself and to do that I used some two-part epoxy after it was fully mixed I started to pour it into the grid that I had cut the idea here was that it would become an inlay and I didn't really want it to cover the entire top but as I started to fill in these gaps it was getting everywhere I decided to go ahead and try to get everything filled and I would come back and sand down the top later in fact I had to do some more epoxy because I didn't mix up enough the first time this second batch I was just trying to fill it in so that all of the inlay was level with the top surface turns out I had excess I went ahead and let it dry and then after it was dried I sanded it down but I quickly realized that if I sanded too much I would sand through the top veneer of the plywood and I didn't want that I decided deed to go ahead and cover the whole thing with epoxy to have a solid surface but before I did that I needed to have a lip around it so the epoxy wouldn't run off the edge to do that I cut down some more strips of the Walnut that I used earlier and got out my box joint jig most times when you use one of these you have to do quite a few tests to make sure that everything fits correctly I'm not going to show you any of that but eventually I ended up with a really nice fit with one corner working I set it in place and then marked the ends of the pieces so I knew exactly how long they needed to be and still have enough length for the fingers when once you get a jig like this set up it's really quick to cut the rest of the pieces and as long as you don't adjust anything you can use it for the same settings next time all of these pieces were a little bit wide so I just had to trim off one Edge to make sure that everything was even with the width of the fingers after that I did a test fit just to make sure that everything was right before I started gluing anything up I wanted the grid here to actually sit below the top edge of the wood just a little bit so I put some spacers underneath it when I put it upside down I added glue to all the fingers and then started wrapping it around the game board and then I realized that I hadn't put any glue in between the board and the frame itself luckily it all stayed in place while I added some glue to the outside of the plywood and then set it all together before clamping it up once it was partially clamped I flipped it over so that I could make sure that the spacers were giving me an even spacing on all four sides of the game board I use my CNC to cut out the 64 Circle game pieces but if you don't have one you could use a scroll saw or a band saw but it's going to be a lot of work while I'm finishing that up let me quickly tell you about the sponsor and that is Kao and they make these awesome silicone wedding bands if you're into Athletics or you work with your hands you definitely want to get one of these because they are more comfortable and safer than your metal band they're safer because it will Rip before your finger rips and that's important be sure to go check them out Kor ring.com the pieces were all done but I needed a way to hold them underneath the game board and to do this I made another box almost identical to the one that I had already made I started by measuring the inside of the bottom of this box then I follow basically the same process as before I didn't even have to change anything about the finger joint jig it was still all set up to make the same size fingers I used Maple instead of Walnut for the surround and for the plywood I used 1/2 in instead of 3/4 just to cut down on weight and give me a little bit more interior space my saw tends to burn Maple a little bit more so I had quite a bit more sanding to do on these pieces to get them back to their natural color but then I just went through the exact same process glued everything up and clamped it and waited for it to dry when you make finger joints it's good to make them a little bit long that way you can sand them back and get them nice and flush a Disc Sander is the best way that I found to do that I added some more epoxy to completely cover the surface and used a heat gun to bring the bubbles up to the surface so that they would pop be sure not to get the heat gun too close or you'll actually cause more bubbles while the epoxy cured I sprayed on a few light coats of spray lacquer onto all the game pieces I did this in my brand new paint booth which I made a video about recently spray lacquer dries really quickly so I added a few coats flipped them all over and added a few more coats to the other side the bottom side of the Box needed to be finished up the same way as the top so I sanded off the extra fingers and then used an orbital sander to get rid of any extra glue squeeze out and get all of the surfaces nice and smooth I keep a little Lazy Susan around for doing things like finishing and painting in this case I was using some tongue oil finish which is a polyurethane and tongue oil mixture the tongue oil in this mixture really makes the grain pop no matter what kind of wood you're using and the polyurethane adds a nice protective coat usually when I use this finish I'll do about two coats and that seems to be plenty I really love the way this stuff makes walnut look after a couple of coats drying a couple hours each this game was finished overall super happy with how this thing came out especially the pieces they turned out great even though they were a huge amount of work the epoxy on the top not so crazy about it but it does work all right and I'm really happy that on the inside there is more than enough storage so you could actually put some other stuff some decks of cards or things in here there's plenty of room even after putting all the pieces in that's it for this one guys let me know what you think about it down in the comments below I've also got my Social Links down there if you want to find me on Instagram Twitter all that stuff if you want to see that quto video that I was talking about it's right here and I've got a lot of other videos for you to check out don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new project thanks for watching I'll see you next timehey I'm Bob at I like to make steps today we're going to make athow or reversi depending on where you live over the past couple of years I've made a couple tabletop games the most recent one was quto which you can check out right here and while I was doing that one AOW came up as a game that would be really fun to make specifically because I would have to figure out how to make these pieces that were two different materials as per usual I didn't really plan ahead on this I just kind of started making it and I figured it out as I went along so let's get into it using my band saw I resaw some wood both Maple and walnut down to strips of about an eighth of an inch thick I did several strips of each type of wood and then I laid them all out and added glue I made sure to spread the glue around and get as much coverage as possible between the two pieces of wood because I'm going to cut the pieces for the game out of these strips I glued up one pair of boards and then added a strip of tape and this is really just to keep some separation in between the different sets of boards in case there's any glue leakage they won't all get glued together once I had all these pieces done I used clamps to make one big stack of them so they would all get clamped at the same time some strips were longer than others so I just trimmed off the extra on the miter saw then I moved on to making the game board I cut a piece of plywood down to 12 in square then I lowered the blade and moved the fence over so when I ran the board over the blade it just cut the blad's width off the outside edge I spun it around all four times and get this little lip I figured out the size of the squares that I wanted on my game board and moov the fence over that amount I ran it through four times spinning it 90° each time I followed the same procedure just moving the fence over making all the cuts moving the fence over making all the cuts and eventually I cut the center lines I made two cuts for this with one turn in between I ended up with a nice even grid to frame this out I cut several 1-in strips of the same material on the first piece I cut the miters a little bit long and then went back and trm them until they were a perfect fit once I had one that fit perfectly on the side I used it as a reference point to cut the other three exactly the same this helps them to all fit really really snugly around the outside of the board and always match up in the corners I set up some clamps and glued up all the side pieces it's really important that you add glue not only to the sides that are touching the game board but also to the corners so that all the joints are nice and strong after I let these set up for a while I took it all out of the clamps and then I needed to fill the gaps in the game board itself and to do that I used some two-part epoxy after it was fully mixed I started to pour it into the grid that I had cut the idea here was that it would become an inlay and I didn't really want it to cover the entire top but as I started to fill in these gaps it was getting everywhere I decided to go ahead and try to get everything filled and I would come back and sand down the top later in fact I had to do some more epoxy because I didn't mix up enough the first time this second batch I was just trying to fill it in so that all of the inlay was level with the top surface turns out I had excess I went ahead and let it dry and then after it was dried I sanded it down but I quickly realized that if I sanded too much I would sand through the top veneer of the plywood and I didn't want that I decided deed to go ahead and cover the whole thing with epoxy to have a solid surface but before I did that I needed to have a lip around it so the epoxy wouldn't run off the edge to do that I cut down some more strips of the Walnut that I used earlier and got out my box joint jig most times when you use one of these you have to do quite a few tests to make sure that everything fits correctly I'm not going to show you any of that but eventually I ended up with a really nice fit with one corner working I set it in place and then marked the ends of the pieces so I knew exactly how long they needed to be and still have enough length for the fingers when once you get a jig like this set up it's really quick to cut the rest of the pieces and as long as you don't adjust anything you can use it for the same settings next time all of these pieces were a little bit wide so I just had to trim off one Edge to make sure that everything was even with the width of the fingers after that I did a test fit just to make sure that everything was right before I started gluing anything up I wanted the grid here to actually sit below the top edge of the wood just a little bit so I put some spacers underneath it when I put it upside down I added glue to all the fingers and then started wrapping it around the game board and then I realized that I hadn't put any glue in between the board and the frame itself luckily it all stayed in place while I added some glue to the outside of the plywood and then set it all together before clamping it up once it was partially clamped I flipped it over so that I could make sure that the spacers were giving me an even spacing on all four sides of the game board I use my CNC to cut out the 64 Circle game pieces but if you don't have one you could use a scroll saw or a band saw but it's going to be a lot of work while I'm finishing that up let me quickly tell you about the sponsor and that is Kao and they make these awesome silicone wedding bands if you're into Athletics or you work with your hands you definitely want to get one of these because they are more comfortable and safer than your metal band they're safer because it will Rip before your finger rips and that's important be sure to go check them out Kor ring.com the pieces were all done but I needed a way to hold them underneath the game board and to do this I made another box almost identical to the one that I had already made I started by measuring the inside of the bottom of this box then I follow basically the same process as before I didn't even have to change anything about the finger joint jig it was still all set up to make the same size fingers I used Maple instead of Walnut for the surround and for the plywood I used 1/2 in instead of 3/4 just to cut down on weight and give me a little bit more interior space my saw tends to burn Maple a little bit more so I had quite a bit more sanding to do on these pieces to get them back to their natural color but then I just went through the exact same process glued everything up and clamped it and waited for it to dry when you make finger joints it's good to make them a little bit long that way you can sand them back and get them nice and flush a Disc Sander is the best way that I found to do that I added some more epoxy to completely cover the surface and used a heat gun to bring the bubbles up to the surface so that they would pop be sure not to get the heat gun too close or you'll actually cause more bubbles while the epoxy cured I sprayed on a few light coats of spray lacquer onto all the game pieces I did this in my brand new paint booth which I made a video about recently spray lacquer dries really quickly so I added a few coats flipped them all over and added a few more coats to the other side the bottom side of the Box needed to be finished up the same way as the top so I sanded off the extra fingers and then used an orbital sander to get rid of any extra glue squeeze out and get all of the surfaces nice and smooth I keep a little Lazy Susan around for doing things like finishing and painting in this case I was using some tongue oil finish which is a polyurethane and tongue oil mixture the tongue oil in this mixture really makes the grain pop no matter what kind of wood you're using and the polyurethane adds a nice protective coat usually when I use this finish I'll do about two coats and that seems to be plenty I really love the way this stuff makes walnut look after a couple of coats drying a couple hours each this game was finished overall super happy with how this thing came out especially the pieces they turned out great even though they were a huge amount of work the epoxy on the top not so crazy about it but it does work all right and I'm really happy that on the inside there is more than enough storage so you could actually put some other stuff some decks of cards or things in here there's plenty of room even after putting all the pieces in that's it for this one guys let me know what you think about it down in the comments below I've also got my Social Links down there if you want to find me on Instagram Twitter all that stuff if you want to see that quto video that I was talking about it's right here and I've got a lot of other videos for you to check out don't forget to subscribe so you never miss a new project thanks for watching I'll see you next time\n"