How to Make a Custom Game Board for Nine Men's Morris
Visit my website: https://www.ariswoodshop.com
I started out by cutting a 10” long piece of 8” wide birch lamboard to use as my game board. Your game board doesn’t have to be birch it can be any wood 8x10”.
I made a template in CAD for the board so I wouldn’t need to make any measuring. I used some glue stick to hold the template down. You could use double sided tape or pray glue, it doesn’t really matter, go with what you have. You can download the template from my website, link is down below.
I used a 3/8” drill bit to make holes on the intersections of the lines; the holes are about 3/8” deep.
I then used a rotary tool to carve down the lines. You can skip this part if you don’t have any tools to do that, I’ll explain that later. I had forgotten to drill a few holes so I had to go back to the drill press to fix that.
I used a random orbital sander to remove the template from the board. To my knowledge spray glue comes off much easier than glue stick, but that probably depends on the material being used.
I put some tape on the parts where I had carved in the wrong places. II then gave the board one coat of black spray paint to kinda make the holes and the lines pop up after the surface is sanded. You could use a marker and a ruler to make the lines to make the process easier.
I used pretty aggressive grit to remove the paint from the surface. Some of the lines where I hadn’t gone deep enough disappeared so I deepened those parts and painted them over again, I did that off camera. After the second try I still had some lines fading out, so I used a marker to highlight some parts of the lines.
I wanted to experiment finishing with spray lacquer. Remember to do this in well ventilated area or preferably outside, the stuff I used smells terrible and probably is pretty harmful to your health so use a respirator. Lacquer raises the fibers on the wood so give the board a light sanding between the coats, I gave the board two coats of finish.
I got some cheap marbles from EBay to use as pieces, or as they are called in Nine Men’s Morris, men. Each player needs 9 pieces, usually one has white pieces and the other has black pieces. If you don’t know the rules to how to play Nine Men’s Morris, I have a link to a tutorial video below.
http://ariswoodshop.com/projects/nine-men-s-morris/
9 Men's Morris - how play: https://youtu.be/INWIZH1FVx8
I started out by cutting a 10” long piece of 8” wide birch lamboard to use as my game board. Your game board doesn’t have to be birch it can be any wood 8x10”.
I made a template in CAD for the board so I wouldn’t need to make any measuring. I used some glue stick to hold the template down. You could use double sided tape or pray glue, it doesn’t really matter, go with what you have. You can download the template from my website, link is down below.
I used a 3/8” drill bit to make holes on the intersections of the lines; the holes are about 3/8” deep.
I then used a rotary tool to carve down the lines. You can skip this part if you don’t have any tools to do that, I’ll explain that later. I had forgotten to drill a few holes so I had to go back to the drill press to fix that.
I used a random orbital sander to remove the template from the board. To my knowledge spray glue comes off much easier than glue stick, but that probably depends on the material being used.
I put some tape on the parts where I had carved in the wrong places. II then gave the board one coat of black spray paint to kinda make the holes and the lines pop up after the surface is sanded. You could use a marker and a ruler to make the lines to make the process easier.
I used pretty aggressive grit to remove the paint from the surface. Some of the lines where I hadn’t gone deep enough disappeared so I deepened those parts and painted them over again, I did that off camera. After the second try I still had some lines fading out, so I used a marker to highlight some parts of the lines.
I wanted to experiment finishing with spray lacquer. Remember to do this in well ventilated area or preferably outside, the stuff I used smells terrible and probably is pretty harmful to your health so use a respirator. Lacquer raises the fibers on the wood so give the board a light sanding between the coats, I gave the board two coats of finish.
I got some cheap marbles from EBay to use as pieces, or as they are called in Nine Men’s Morris, men. Each player needs 9 pieces, usually one has white pieces and the other has black pieces. If you don’t know the rules to how to play Nine Men’s Morris, I have a link to a tutorial video below.
http://ariswoodshop.com/projects/nine-men-s-morris/
9 Men's Morris - how play: https://youtu.be/INWIZH1FVx8
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