Chess Board in Walnut and Maple

Hand wash only. Wipe dry immediately.
Never place in dishwasher or submerge in water.

Re-apply Rubio Monocoat once annually.

November 2025. A friend asked if I could make a chessboard. The idea lodged in my brain for months. When she asked again, it was go time.

I’ve always avoided the checkerboard aesthetic. Cutting gorgeous wood into tiny blocks, flipping them, rearranging them. It feels more like tradition than sense. You can build a perfectly durable board without turning it into end grain confetti.

Sourcing walnut was unexpectedly easy. I had old-growth stock in my shop waiting for something worthy. Maple became the quest. Every Reno shop struck out. One was closed for inventory. One had nothing thick enough. Time was short, Christmas was coming, and I wasn’t going to fake it with thin veneers.

Out of desperation, I searched thick maple on Marketplace. A barn popped up thirty minutes south of me. Looked like a scam. It wasn’t. A mother and son wrote back. Their logger husband and father had hauled his favorite cuts down from the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades decades ago. The boards had been aging in that barn ever since.

I drove down. The boards were perfect. Heavy, calm big leaf maple. Most of the job became milling down raw logs, orienting the grain so each square held its own quiet order. My friend's chosen Frank Lloyd Wright chess pieces need a board that respects the geometry without becoming a design tantrum.

Working on it changed my mind a little. Tradition is never the whole story.

Sometimes the endgame is realizing the old patterns still have room for new moves.