Backgammon Set

(click on images to enlarge)

Many years ago, I built my first backgammon set. It came together nicely, but there were a few aspects that I wanted to improve on. As the years have passed and my skills have grown, I knew that I would be able to make those improvements successfully. The necessity for extreme accuracy in the joinery was where I knew I could improve and so I went about building three sets. They sold quickly and feedback from the owners has focused on not only the joinery, but also the tactile experience of the wooden playing pieces in their hands. The field of the board is a combination of wenge, maple, and sapele, and the case is black walnut with a veneer of plumwood – the same plumwood used on the Plumwood Altar.

Building this required creating blocks of wedges of the wenge, maple and sapele, and then cutting the blocks into cookies about 3/32″ thick. These were then assembled and mounted on a substrate the opposite side of which was the plumwood veneer. The playing pieces of wenge and maple match the points, as do the dice cups. I did have to purchase the dice and doubling cube (used for betting) as these needed to be properly weighted to not keep rolling one number or another.

The plumwood veneered case exterior

Finally, I had to search a fair bit to find a clasp that enhanced the case exterior. In truth, there are tons of interesting and fancy clasps out there, but this one was the right one, in my opinion.

For a more complete description of the building steps, read the blog post here.