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Spencley Design Co
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📖 Chapters 📖
00:00 – The controversy starts
02:00 – You dont need big expensive tools
02:48 – The detail that really got my brain spinning
05:42 – Why so serious?
07:00 – Making a fake marble slab
08:45 – Making it snow inside my shop
09:55 – Uncharted territory
11:09 – The most important part of making a chess board
12:54 – The big reveal
13:48 – Actually the most important part is here
14:25 – Why did I charge so much?
16:45 – Is the chess board ruined?
19:59 – Getting a glass smooth surface
37 Comments
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You don’t have a yard you live in an apartment
I’ve never seen a gold top table saw?! Looks so good. What brand is that?
$2500 ? hahahaha
Nice board! With all the epoxy shavings why don’t you have that fancy Harvey dust collection set up?
Looks good.
(And yes, it is a shame you forgot the plastic on one of the epoxy pours.)
Just "spit balling" some things though:
Ok, the epoxy is a nice idea to also protect the wood/board and keep it looking nice.
The TOP surface: Why not use glass? (Float glass – of course)
Basically do what you did, but one side don't fret too much.
The board is the FINAL SIZE you want.
Get some thin-ish float glass the same size.
Put the glass on the top side of the board – be it you have it upside down when attaching them together – and you would only need a thin layer of epoxy to attach it
Then you are guaranteed a FLAT surface on the top.
Ok, it can crash/split/(what ever) but if the person to whom it is given knows this and treats it with respect…. That shouldn't be a problem.
Great video the chessboard turned out great. Thanks for sharing
Wow! Just . . . wow!
That looks awesome.
"You don't need big expensive tools"… as he pulls out his $800 festool tracksaw. 😂😅
Is it sarcasm that you said "you don't need expensive tools" just at the moment when you grab the Festool at 2:28
I've never seen someone waist so much time using a planer instead of a table saw. You would never make it in a real shop environment.
New guy here, please excuse my ignorance. What is the name of the pyramid stands in the 20:06 time stamp?
The " no expensive tools " and then a shot of all kinds of festool boxes. Hard to take him serioysly after that
Only thing better than Roman Ogee is Roman Ogee on Red Oak.
everything made sense as a deluxe, luxury chess board until you used adhesive-backed rubber feet. Interesting that you would spend all this time, money and thought and then use something so cheap and temporary as this. Love the piece but the details don't end until everything gets the same level of attention.
Excellent work as always!!
Hey Mr. Spencley! I have a question about your DeWalt planer. Do you use the stock knives? Or did you replace the knives with an aftermarket tool bit rotor? I ask, because I’m contemplating replacing my rotor, but the aftermarket tool bit rotor is kind of pricey.
I was talking to a guy after golf the other day. We spoke about the upcoming election. RvW being overturned, the trans issue, and the war in Gaza. But then the topic of OGEE profiles came up and it almost came to blows. We we ejected from the bar!
25 hrs? I'm struggling with this one. I've build many chess boards with complicated borders, and I think I average 4 hours per board. This one is a little different, but the cutting of the squares to make the 64 checker board pattern is two glue ups, one rip cut setup, and one cross cut setup at the table saw. Ripping the boards, 10 mins. x 2. Insuring great joints (jointer/planer), 10 mins. x 2. Glue up, 10 mins x 2. That should take you max 1-1.5hr to do this. My complicated borders take 1-2 hrs to mill the wood to thin .03/.06/.125 strips and glue them up to make striped borders cut at 45 at the edges and glue to the checker board pattern. I spend the rest of that 4 hrs. sanding and finishing. Are you including over night cure times for your glue ups? I leave all my glue ups over night but I don't include this in my labor cost because I'm not working physically working on the board.
I wanted a combination keyboard and trackball that I could put on my lap to help with my shoulder pain. I couldn't find anything that had a normal size trackball. It was all either tiny useless trackballs or industrial grade trackballs that cost hundreds of dollars.
So I decided to build it myself. I designed the circuit board and designed and 3d printed the case. I would only be willing to pay about $75 for something like this pre-made.
I spent well over $200 on the parts to build it, and probably a good 120 hours or so in time designing the circuit board, designing the case and then 3d printing it as well. If I were to value my time at just $15 an hour, which is crazy low for a custom build, that would be $2,000.
So yea, a $2,000 or $2,500 chess board is completely reasonable. It might have only cost you a tenth of that in parts, but the time you put into build it far outweighs the cost of the materials.
This chess board turned out absolutely stunning 😍
One could spend 25 hours on a single 1/4"-20×1" hex head machine screw, but at the end of the day, regardless of how perfect your machine screw is, all you have a common item you can purchase for less than 50 cents. Of course, this whole thing is an exercise to generate views and comments…so there's that.
You are making 1 chess board, hence the high sticker price. There are ways to scale up your production and thus cutting costs. Imagine if you took orders for 500 chess boards and could make them together. I'd think you could plan out working on 4 to 5 boards at a time.
But figuring out a process for one chess board does take work.
Have you ever tried Addis Restaurant on Cleaveland Ave? My favorite restaurant in Columbus.
$2,500 for that board? Perfectly justified. I’m glad your client appreciates the time, effort and costs to you that go into making a quality piece. Well done.
Didn’t you live in an apartment?
Wow! So beautiful!!
Roman Ogee if the OG. Is a classic, will always be a classic. Hate not justified; no likes for you.
Who would have thought a chess board could be sexy 😂
if you really found someone that would pay over $2000 for that, then definitely keep their contact info. they're a goldmine
Edge geometry is like wine. Whatever you like best is the right one.
sounds like they need a 5 gallon powered lid mixer that just keeps mixing while you work elsewhere
if you add all his hours and material he probably was less then min wage . $600 wage to cheap
Was there nothing at all to do after the final clear epoxy coat cured? No weird drips off the bottom edge that needed dealt with?
Damn man… I had that happen where my cast stuck to the melamine – the mold release spray did not work. And what I was casting was an 8-foot maple slab. And I don't have a planer, so I had to smash it all off with hand tools. I don't know that I've ever sworn so much in any other project in my life. I was NOT impressed!
Thought you would use led lights? I guess I mis-heard. How would putting cavities in the walnut blocks and placing the led facing the epoxy squares. Score the squares, fill with black resin and run the wires along the black resin? No? Ok just a thought.