Senet throwing sticks, tafl frames

There are a lot of parts to even simple games, and sometimes the simple pieces get overlooked in favor of building the main game board.  So I spent a lot of time in the woodshop today, cutting frames for tafl boards and cutting throwing sticks for all the senet boxes we've put together over the last several months.  This is the second batch of throwing sticks, after an initial sanding.  The first batch is drying after a light stain was applied.  A couple of 9x9 tablut boards are to the right.

Some late night game board staining

Decided to stay up late and get some staining done.  Below is a picture of our first 11 x 11 hnefatafl board. In the unstained shot you also see four 9 x 9 tablut boards.  I just finished wiping down the stained hnefatfal board about 10 minutes ago.  We'll let it dry for about 72 hours, then apply a water-based polycrylic that will give the gameboard a nice looking finished look. 

Game Board Squares

Spent some time today cutting squares out of oak plywood.  These are 1 1/4 inch squares that we'll use for our tafl games (mainly Tablut and Ard Ri for now).  We use the same size for our Seega games, but we typically use pine for those.  During assembly, we need to do a light sanding to make sure everything fits correctly, and then the pieces are glued onto a base.

Blank Tablut Gameboard

It's been over a week since I've cut anything, so I cut and shaped the frame to this 11 x 11 Tablut board that I made about 2 weeks ago.  Here they are, unsanded, unstained, and unglued.   We're also working on a new design for the tafl game pieces.  I found some cool glass globe style tafl game pieces online that I think I'll base a new set on.

Gluing the Tablut Frame

Finally got around to gluing the frame for the Tablut board.  The frame is only about half an inch thick at its widest, so my corner straps were a little tricky to get in place. 

The individual squares for this board are 1 1/4 inches on a side, and the overall gameboard is just under 12" x 12" with the frame.

Finished Tablut board

Well, mostly finished. The 9x9 gameboard is still drying (applied a coat of danish oil).  Played around with a few different router settings before settling on a border frame that we liked. Once it's dried and glued, we'll probably add a high gloss or semi gloss finish to it.

And Back to Tafl games...

This is dry assembled tafl board...a 9x9 grid used in the tafl variant called "Tablut".  Before we're done, we'll apply danish oil to the board, and add a border frame to tie the set together.  Tablut is the best documented tafl game--the Swedish botonist Carl Linnaeus observed Sami tribesmen in Lapland playing the game in 1732 and recorded what he could (he didn't speak the language) in his journal.
(oh yeah, and notice the Orbiter Arts wine glass--ordered a set of these a few months back, just threw it in the pic to show it off)