One day back in 2021 I got back into my chess games.  I wanted a nice board, better than the "toy" chess boards you find in the department stores.  I found nice vintage looking ones online but the prices were often as much as $300,  One day at Lowes I was looking for some laminated flooring when I saw they have 4x4 inch samples of their floor laminate boards.  I inquired with the manager on duty who told me they were normally free for people shopping flooring to take home to evaluate, but he said he would sell me what I wanted for a buck apiece.  That was a deal ~ I could get 16 nicely colored durable, sythetic wooden squares for my chess board deck for only $16.

I went home with ten dark oak and ten light maple sample squares.  I cut them to the dimensions I wanted my board squares with the table saw and epoxy'd them to a pine backboard.

For my binding I wanted to use Maple and Purpleheart, but there was no purple heart available locally, so I used red oak and  raftwood laminated Cabaret Red that I laminated together.   My chess pieces I got from the good folks at Wholesale Chess dot com.  I used copper accents for corner edge protectors.

I finished my chess board with a vintage looking label printed on a sheet of brown grocery bag.