Materials:
First, I measured a standard Scrabble board. It's all weirdly sized, so transferring the grid to the table was a pain in the neck. I repeatedly checked the size of my squares against a Scrabble tile to make sure the sizing was right.
Zach loves Scrabble. I have made him other Scrabble products before. This one was a big undertaking. I wanted to give him a fancy furniture piece to be used in a game room. I bought an unfinished wooden table from IKEA for something like $18 and woodburned the board onto it. The process was as follows.
With the ruler, I burned one line at a time. I have a crappy woodburner which loses its burning power after a few minutes, so I had to let it reheat after each line. I found that I needed the ruler to make the first initial line, but then, in order to fatten it up, I went over the line freehand a few more times. The lines came out fairly uniform.
One word of warning. Be careful with that woodburner. They're quite hot and can do a lot of damage really quickly. I burned "outside of the lines" once or twice, and there's no way to get rid of the lines (sanding them out would result in a big divot). No big thing, since I widened the edge-lines to accommodate, but you won't always be so lucky. Also, make sure you have a sturdy, secure place to rest your woodburner when not in use. Mine got knocked to the floor once and the whole room smelled like burned carpet for two days. Luckily, I grabbed it right after it fell and there is no noticeable damage to the carpet, but the place STANK and I had to cool my woodburner and wipe all of the little bubbles of melted carpet off. Yuck. Please note, too, that woodburners are little fire-machines. You are (duh) burning wood. It will smoke. Make sure you're in a well-ventilated area and don't lean over your work too closely or (sing it with me now) the smoke gets in your eyes.
So, I burned a bunch of lines and a star in the center (which I freehanded). Then, I sanded lightly with 400 grit sandpaper to take the edge off. After wiping with a tack cloth, I was ready to stain. I found some really cool stain pens at the hardware store -- they're supposed to be used to touch up scratches and stuff but they were PERFECT for this. I used Dark Mahogany and Driftwood, but would've liked to have used a more blue or grey stain (alas, Lowe's Hardware didn't have a large selection). I just reapplied the stain several times where the squares should've been darker (the triple letter and word squares). After two days of drying, I wiped all the squares off to remove any excess. When I have time, I'll apply some carnuba wax to protect it, but for now, Zach has a gorgeous Scrabble table.
Total time spent: several days, on and off
US Dollars spent: approximately forty five dollars
Please note: Unless otherwise noted, all of these instructions, photographs, and ideas are mine. Please give me credit (and send me pictures!) if you work off of these designs. The sale of any items based on these designs is prohibited.
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