Cribbage Boards

[kartracer63]

Thought I'd share with you some cribbage boards I made for a local realty company.

I went into the realty office with the idea that they should give all of their new cabin and lake home buyers one of my "Custom Carved Signs" as a house warming gift. It took me all of about 90 seconds to sell them on that idea.

Then somehow we got on the subject of cribbage boards, and that I could make them, and the owner's eyes just lit up. His voice even got all crackly when he asked me to repeat that I could make cribbage boards with their company logo carved into the cribbage board. Apparently there was another local guy that used to make them. But, he's no longer making them and the realty company really liked giving them out to local groups and fund raisers as door prizes and such.

Anyways... they ordered 25 cribbage boards.

The bank across the street from the realty company will be ordering 10 or more of the same type of board. The lumber yard is very interested in ordering some as well.

[kartracer63]

Here are a couple photos showing the bottom of the cribbage boards.

Thanks to Scott Worden for sharing the peg storage design.

Everything that I'm making now gets branded with my new branding iron.

I cut the keyhole so they can hang their board on the wall if they choose.

Not shown in these photos, every board will get 4 little felt pads stuck on too.

[myxpykalix]

This is the kind of story we like to hear. It must mean at least in your area the real estate market must be doing ok (based on that stack of boards you had finished) Good for you!

[CNYDWW]

This is just the kind of work i think we all like to see. Custom production like this pays a lot of bills. Very nice work.

[srwtlc]

Very nice Eric!

I'm starting to think that you live a little to close to me!

Just kiddin', keep up the good work!

[don62]

Eric,

beautiful work - what wood did you use for the project and how did you finish (sand etc) the edges? all my attemps at cutting curves on wood have created a difficult edge to sand. don

[Acmeaviator]

I don't know how Eric is finishing his pieces...but for me the second best piece of equipment in my shop after the Bot is my Jet oscillating sander. Could'nt live without it.

[dlcw]

Brian,

I think the next piece of equipment you will find you can't live without is a wide-belt drum sander (aka Jet) for prepping stock for the CNC. I use my Performax ALOT more since I got my CNC. Makes for flattening figured and non-figured wood to exact thicknesses a breeze. No chip out like you get with a planer.

[dlcw]

Don - I picked up an inexpensive Rigid oscillating sander with the flat sanding capabilities. I use it a lot after pulling things off the CNC to smooth the edges. I find that even with a brand new bit, I still get rough edges that need to be smoothed.

I got the:
RIDGID Oscillating Edge/Belt Spindle Sander

from the orange store.

[kartracer63]

Thanks guys!

Don G.,

These are mostly hard maple. I also made a few using black ash.

I cut the boards out using a 1/4" downcut spiral bit. I cut down .2" per pass at a feed rate of 1"/sec at 19,000 rpm. I had acceptable results with those numbers. Although, according to Don Thomson, by the amount of screaching I was hearing from my bit, my feed rate might be a bit slow and my rpms on the router might have been a little high.

I don't have a fancy drum sander like those big dollar shops. So, I just chucked up a little sanding drum in the drill press to do the initial sanding of the edges. I finished up the sanding with my orbital palm sander.

I sprayed on minwax polyurethane with my hvlp spray gun ($12.99 @ harbor freight) straight out of the can (no thinning). This was the first time attempting this method of finishing. I was very pleased how well it went and how nice the boards look.