I came across this idea on Pinterest one day. I saved it in the archives and just forgot about it...
I never really wanted to clamp the wood together to make it the right thickness; I always thought it would be a waste...and that there was probably something better I could do with the wood...
Until...
When I went and got my super cheap wood in Sanford, the stack I bought also included some glued-together wood, about 3" thick, that was not reclaimed. Just standard stock wood...I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but it was sitting in my wood pile taking up room!
Until I dug up this project!
Let's get started!
This piece of wood is actually 3 different slabs of wood glued together; approximately 3" thick. I followed some plans online, and the cubes they used in the plans were 3.5" on all sides. According to my calculations, I will be able to get EXACTLY 9 cubes out of this piece of wood.
Since it was irregularly shaped, I ran the wood through my table saw to get (2) 3.5" strips. Then, I used my miter saw to cut the strips down to (9) 3.5" X 3.5" X 3" cubes. I had just enough to do this, with nothing left over to make another cube, so I had to be careful not to mess up!
If you have a good eye, you can see where I had to improvise a little bit! If you don't have a good eye, then too bad!
Just kidding, I'll tell you...
The 9th cube that I cut (in the middle of the bottom row above) came out a little smaller than the rest. I ran out of wood! It won't affect the final product, other than aesthetically if you look really hard, so I didn't think it would be a big deal to leave it!
Next step was to sand the cubes down and remove the splinters and jagged edges. I also rounded the corners!
I wiped the cubes down with a damp cloth to remove the dust to prep for stain. I laid them all out and let them dry!
As you can also see, one of the cubes has a pretty large knot in it. I didn't choose to fix it or re-do the cube because (1) It's natural and to be expected with wood, and, most importantly, (2) I don't have any more wood like this to make more cubes!
Moving on!
I pulled out some stains and thought about which one to use...
I decided on Minwax Dark Walnut stain for the cubes. Since I plan on using white to paint the "X's" and "O's" and the game board, the contrast between light and dark is going to look great!
I used a shop rag to stain all sides of the cubes at once.
Once dried, I put them to the side and moved on to the game board!
The plans called for each strip used to create the board to be 2.5" thick. So, I cut a couple strips of 2.5" stock using my table saw.
I cut the strips down to length according to the plans:
-(2) 13 7/8" strips
-(4) 12 3/8" strips
-(6) 3 5/8" strips
Time to put them all together!
I used a combination of wood glue, wood screws and pocket holes to hold this one together. My intention was to just use pocket screws, but I actually ran out of the screws I needed. Rather than holding up progress, I used wood glue and regular wood screws to finish the assembly.
As you can see, it needs a good sanding! So, after letting the wood glue dry, I sanded the whole piece down with my new palm sander! I also took this opportunity to add a backer board to the bottom!
The plans online actually called for another piece of 3/4" wood to act as the base. But, since this piece is already going to be heavy enough, I elected to use a thin sheet of backer board to lighten the load!
It was also really important to me that no screws could be seen on the outside of the piece. Just for aesthetic reasons. So, I made sure my screw heads were driven into the wood nicely, and I went over the screw heads with wood filler. I let the filler dry overnight and sanded it down smooth.
VOILA!
It's like the screws disappeared!
I wiped the game board down to remove all dust to prep for paint!
I decided on white latex paint for the game board; it's super durable and I like the texture of the wood after it clears. It's also very easy to see any missed spots! I let it dry and set it to the side!
On to the game cube pieces!
I cut out a stencil from cardstock to use for the "X's" and "O's" so they would all be uniform. Then, I sprayed them on using Pearl White spray paint.
But, I didn't really like how they came out...The white looks almost gray against the dark stain. So, I went over the "X's" and "O's" with my white latex paint to give it the pop I was looking for!
Much better!
On to poly!
After fully drying, I used water-based,brush-on gloss polyurethane to seal the deal. I went with brush-on poly for this one because I didn't want to miss a spot! Sometimes, with the spray, it's easy to miss a spot or two. Plus, there's always a lot of waste when you are spraying something 3D that doesn't sit flat on a surface! Could be a huge mess!
The game board doesn't need poly to seal; once that latex paint cures, it'll be super durable!
After letting the poly fully dry, I pieced them into the game board just to take a look!
I like it! It's rustic and a little "off," but that's what makes it one of a kind!
When the blocks are laid on their side to show the "O" shape, they are a little bit taller than the "X's." Because of the limitation I had with the amount of wood available, I had to change up some things from the plan. However, I should have gone with a smaller cube that had equal sides all the way around, preferably 3" X 3" X 3". The game board would have been a little bit smaller as well. Definitely something to think about for next time!
But all things considered, I think it looks really good for a scrap wood game!
-Kevin
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