How to (NOT) make a Chessboard | Beginner's Mistakes 

Wow at nearly 3 years old this video has exploded! (At least for me). I appreciate all the views and comments of advice. Just a bit of background. This was my very first RU-vid video and is cringy to watch for multiple reasons! The saw technique being the biggest reason. My editing and voice over skills being another big one for me personally. I still consider myself a beginner in both regards, but the recent response to this video has inspired me to continue to make videos and improve my skills. Rest assured I do not use the table saw like this anymore 😀 Thanks so much for watching and subscribing! If you have a sec check out my other videos!

Don't sweat the early mistakes. You've got a decent mix of tools, and you'll gain the experience over time to do some nice stuff. When glueing strips, clamp a couple of straight rigid boards across the strips, top and bottom, to keep them flat. Use wax or parchment paper to keep them away from the glue. This will really cut down on the planing and sanding.

Two words --- riving knife.

I'm sure after 4 years your skills have truly improved. I wish you best of luck in your woodworking endeavors.

You made this video some 3years ago and this is my first visit. I think it’s inspiring to any wood worker beginning or experienced. You learn from your mistakes and find a way to make it right. Your shop looks well equipped and one thing I can offer is to use them, it’s a lot easier and safer. Your honesty and narrative made this a pleasure to watch.

Dont beat yourself up too much over this. Anytime you make your "prototype" project, it always takes a lot longer as you are working through things as you go. The next time will be a lot easier. In the end, you have a really nice chessboard, and unless you are making these for production, thats all that counts.

Wonderful. What a helpful tutorial. Love it. Thanks for your humility and candor.

I love your honesty and humbleness. Mistakes happen and we learn from it. This video inspired me to make one. I hope you stay safe and healthy and nothing bad happens to you in shop. Love your videos man. Keep up the great work.

That was a rough journey. And I only say that not to dog you, but because I know exactly how that feels. Man, you perservered and you made a lot of small mistakes (we all do) but the point to take home was you ended up with a beautiful piece at the end! The mistakes don't matter. What matters / mattered was you stuck it out and fixed them. Great work. I hope mine turns out that nice in the end!

Tip for gluing - add some salt to the glue, it helps them not to slide around when clamped.

This is great! Thank you for sharing the entire process and all the pitfalls!

Dude! Make yourself a decent push stick! A scrap piece of wood is not a push stick. I cringed when I saw you using that thing. As far as bar clamping, use more clamps and alternate them top /bottom to even out the forces and as you say, do not overtighten. Clamping cauls may help to even out the pressure as well.

Thanks for Sharing Ben. Interesting.

Great video! Thanks ❤

Absolutely beautiful - very generous to share that. I have seen lots of videos with perfect presentations which are obviously geared towards selling. But your video is actually inspiring dudes like me who have never done this and don't have fancy machinery to make something like that. YOUR chessboard and especially the way YOU made it is my favored. THANK YOU

Thanks for the video. I'm a beginning woodworker too. It's nice to see someone else who makes mistakes and has to figure out how to fix them.

Great vid, thank you! I'm going to give this a go this year (when it's warm enough to be out in the shop) and your video has been really helpful. I think I'll keep the border square, cut the 45 degree angles and then add a chamfer with a router after its glued. I don't have a table saw so that's going to be my biggest challenge I reckon. If it comes out half as nice as yours I'll be happy!

Despite your "learn as you go" errors, it really turned out beautifully! The contrast between the wood squares is really nice. I also liked your choice of finish going with the satin. I am going to try to build my first entire set, starting off with the board and then on to the pieces, but at a smaller scale of 75% USCF size (1.5" squares). I just bought a Dremel 4" table saw for the board and a small Dremel lathe for the pieces. A full size set would likely exceed the capacity of my tools, so I'll just plan on scaling everything down. Great job again!

Thank you for this video. I learned a lot about fixing some of the mistakes I’ve been making. Great final product!

It turned out great!

Good to see you still have all your fingers. Man, that table saw stuff very scary and hopefully you are up with the program these days. The end result was easily acceptable, notwithstanding how hard you had made the work for yourself. Keep going... the only way is forwards!

LOVE this! Regardless of the mistakes, it turned out pretty great! 👏🏻

Wooooooooow amazing 👏🏻

You're Perfect👍🏻 In your first time. Like me, learning by ourselves. Also, learning from the mistakes. Thoroughly enjoyed your woodwork. I love that two-wood colors.

Thanks for sharing this, warts and all! Great vid. Well done.

Looks great!

It’s easy to rave about your successes, but it takes real sand for a man to show others his failures. Cheers for that. You’re ahead of the game for two reasons: First, RU-vid. I wish I had access to so much visual instruction when I first started woodworking. And second, you seem smart enough to ask for help. Best of luck on the journey.

There are (and will be) lots of people just starting out to work with wood and woodworking machinery. Experts can explain how they easily make something but the beginner will struggle to accomplish close to the same thing. Watching YOUR mistakes and learning just as you did is much, much better than watching an expert craft a perfect piece. Thank you, tremendously, for showing your mistakes. This video is a treasure!

i appreciate this.

Great job man!!

It looks great.

Great video. It doesn't matter how long you work with it, it's wood mistakes happen. Board turned out great. You recovered very well.

You done good! It looks very nice, and professional !

Good video. I have just started getting into wood working and i am going to attempt my first chess board build. This is the best vid i have found. Thks

Gorgeous looking wood. Board looks lovely!

Thanks for showing us this. Turned out real nice

I love it. Thank you for sharing! I cringed at your mistakes and cheered at your "but I can fix it". A chess board is hard to execute. The theory is really simple but you have to do everything right. A day of woodworking that doesn't involve bleeding is a success. I appreciate your humility. Your board looks great!

What a great video! The board turned out great in the end. I liked the explanations of the mistakes knowing that I would make numerous errors also the first time doing anything. It’s good to know I’m not alone 😮

Great honest video, keep up the good work man, after all, it looks great !!!

Hope since this video you've gotten a riving knife/splitters, and started using a proper push stick, youre going to send pieces flying

awesome! and very useful tips! going to try to make one of these sometime

Hey, that turned out to be a lovely, classy-looking board! I'd buy it. 😀

Great! i made one for a school project back in 1995 I've still got it. They are things of beauty to me. 👍👍

fun process if I get some smiles but it was worth it this beautiful congratulations

Looks amazing well done

Great video, i really appreciate all the mistakes! :)

Excellent, honest video. Congratulations on tackling a complex project to start out with! I usually do a simple version of my dream project first. I will subscribe

I'm sure you'll excell at whatever you do - as you clearly seek and accept advice rather than thinking you know everything as (some) others do. Great honest video, which gives someone with far less skill some hope. Thanks for posting flaws and all - it really helps.

Thanks for the video, glad to see the same mistakes I’ve made. Thank you.

It is a lovely looking board..

Hey man when gluing enything take a small bar clamp and a straight board put it on the top side

I’ve found getting the rough stock true on one face and edging them helps. The gluing and a hand plane to finish the glued boards square

Wow Awesome & Humble and lovely heart to tell the making process....You nailed a Beautiful chess board bro🥰💗👍

beautiful result!

the best way i find to do accurate forty fives is by fussing and caliberting your saw to a couple thousandths or so true. It is easier to have a high end miter gage like the incra which is tedious to set up true but stays there and will only need to be trued to ninety degrees the forty five settings are true to the ninety to a couple thousandths or so. it has taken me quite a few years to actually learn how to set up my mitre gage correctly using the five sided board method.

Good job! It looks nice as a final product, don't fret about the small stuff, it's the final product that counts.

very nice job! great video.

Checkmate!! Looks like years of fun. It will be handed down. Still have my grandfather’s that he made about 100 years ago. Yours turned out beautiful❤️

I enjoyed the video and I made the same mistakes as you and I will making my next chess board soon, hope I've learnt some thing. You learn by your mistakes. Well done.

Great job!

That was a lot of hard work behind that beautiful chess board. Looking great in the end. Good feeling to play chess with a home built board.

Thanks so much for your honesty! Kudos to you for your persistence. Loved the commentary and no music during the demo. Awesome work! 9.9/10 If you haven't already been told how to mitre the corners, there's probably a video on youtube about it. :)

This is the second video of yours I have watched and like that you tell viewers about the mistakes you make during the build. It helps me learn as much as learning the correct version the first time.

Nice job. Learn so much when making the first one.

It honers you that you talk about the mistakes , but still improvised , adapted and overcame. The result is super and you will treasure this board for years. The little imperfections make it unique and human.

Beautiful end result!

You weren't born a master woodworker. You learn by doing. Your chess board was a great challenge and learning project. Something to be proud of. Display it with pride. It would be great to see where you are now in your woodworking journey. Keep "doing" and learning.

Turned out pretty good 👍

looks professionally-made

Making mistakes = fastest way to learn 👌 Good work chap 👍

Thanks. I want to compliment you on making the video. You did a great job on that.

Amazing 😺

I really like the fact that you shared your mistakes. We all make them. Turned out very nice. Well done.

You are a MASTER. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

When I have some trouble with varying thickness of boards causing trouble on the table saw like you described, I use some hot glue or double sided tape to attach a smooth carrier (MDF of somthing similar) to the bottom and let that slide on the table saw surface. Easy peasy for taking care of that until you get it dressed down smoother. There are also lots of videos using a router sled to smooth the surface down. I have used this method a couple of times and it is great for reducing the amount of sanding required to get the surface smooth.

For cutting board glueups I have a few pre cut/tape wrapped 1\2" plywood squares that I lay on top of the glue up. About 1/4 inch edge exposed around edge, and I use pipe clamps. Helps me.

Good job! I realize you (like me) aren't a master woodworker, but I'm impressed with your perseverance. The end result is great and that's what matters most. 😊

Looks amazing for a first one! Subbed

Using your push stick right next to the fence tends to rotate the stock into the blade-a recipe for mangled stock and a mangled body from kickback. Get or make yourself a decent push stick, one that applies pressure to the top of the workpiece as well as pushing it forward. [Ah, I see one in use at 7:25.] When cutting really thin strips, it is far safer (for you and the stock) to cut the strips so they fall away from blade, not between the blade and the fence. It's a bit more fiddly to get the thicknesses consistent, but it's not that hard and decidedly worth it. When filling gaps, it's best to use wood glue; superglue will darken the wood, making the repair more evident. You ended up with a nice piece, and without having been told about the mistakes made along the way, it's unlikely anyone would ever know.

As you can see, I love to watch and it doesn't matter as long as I enjoy it. Maybe in some time I'll come back to congratulate you, one more time aguien jejejej

A really beautiful board. Great job!

Excellent work, I really like the look of the board at the end of process. I would really love to have that board to play chess.

Thats a beautiful board. Great for a first try.

Great result in the end!

Looks great.Love that you shared your errors and mistakes.Everone makes them but not all have the guts to admit it. I don't have a riving knife so don't worry.The sad ones that criticize are usually the ones that don't do anything

Great looking chess board! Observation : You need to align your fence to your saw blade, or you will be sanding more than you will be sawing. Spend a few days calibrating your saw fence and making sure your saw blade teeth has enough clearance to material as well as a thick steel so it will not bend during the cut. After the cut you should only need light sanding instead of trying to sand off the burn marks. Let the blade rest on hardwoods and even use lubricate to cool the blade to prevent it from overheating & bending while going through a lot of material.

Turned out nice. These are common problems i think all woodworkers face. Ill be reading tips as well. Good video production as well

I just made my first chessboard and even if I had watched your video, I probably would have still made some of the same mistakes. I learn by doing, and I learned a lot. One thing that amazes me about woodworking is how similar it is to PGA golf. While it’s nice to be in the fairway and on the green, the most important skill is recovering from a bad situation. In woodworking this typically involves a lot of sanding!!! 😂😂😂😂😂 Great video!!!

Nobody: Stumpy Nubs: Pushing the material at the farthest point from the blade/closest to fence = kickback. Also, standing directly behind blade while pushing the material wrong = sure injury.

Beautiful

Really helpful to see how you fixed your mistakes.

Working on one of these. Using exact same wood. Turned out good. Hopefully mine will too

Beautiful job in my opinion! .... And thank you for NOT destroying your video, like so many others do, by thinking it necessary to dub in loud, distracting, unnecessary music... I can actually hear your useful commentary!

Not bad at all!! I appreciate your honesty.

For "not" a chessboard... it's amazing!

Turned out nice

I have now watched several very skilled craftsmen making chessboards. They come in ultra high-end, using expensive materials, down to this one, which uses off cuts. They are all fantastic, but this one brings it down to MY level. I have to hunt down some wood now. Thanks for the video. It is great!

Use cauls to put across the board - clamp then to the table/workbench and then clamp the glued surfaces together. You do not need to clamp super tight just enough to get the glued surfaces to adhere to the next one.

very nice

Nicely done! I used walnut and tiger wood for mine.It was out of square by 3/32", so I turned it into a cutting board. I'll use a different technique next time. It looks great!!!