I, well, let's say I learned some valuable lessons from my first attempt to make a real chess board from contrasting woods. It doesn't look
*horrible*, but I can apply lessons learned and do better next time, so I'm not going to bother completing this one. I ruined some nicely figured wood with this misadventure, and I'm trying to think of a way to save it to use some other way.
I have nine strips of not-quite-squares of walnut alternating with soft maple. I'm thinking maybe I could plane the faces flat and laminate all of this together into a roughly square turning blank that would be checkered in three dimensions. The resulting blank would be something shy of 3" square, and a tad over 13" long by the time I take all the humps and bumps out.
I think I've seen stuff like this done before, but I don't remember where. I could use some inspiration, and some pointers. Is Titebond good enough to hold all of this together for turning? Will soft maple and harder walnut create problems? How about the fact that my glue lines aren't quite perfect, and there are some slight voids from faces that weren't exactly parallel to each other?
If I can use it, what could *make* from these things? Would this make a good learner project, or should I save it for later?
My first thought is to glue this up, cut the blank in half and make a salt and pepper shaker set out of it, but that might be both too uninspired and too ambitious for an early project. What else have ya got for me to ponder?