Woodworking Extras For Your Wooden Poker Chip Case That Take It Up A Notch
If you are passionate about poker, and are looking to build or purchase a custom chip case to house your chips, consider incorporating a few woodworking extras to take it up a notch. Here are a few design recommendations that will make an ordinary wooden chip case extraordinary.
Use Solid Wood not Veneer
When designing a poker chip case, you have to take into account the weight of the chips, which can approach 50 lbs for a 1000 poker chip case. The advantages of using solid wood include durability, strength, and practicality. There are also numerous exotic wood types to choose from.
In woodworking, veneer refers to thin slices of wood, usually thinner than 3 mm (1/8 inch), that are typically glued onto core panels (typically, wood, particle board or medium density fiberboard) to produce flat panels for cabinets, parquet floors and furniture. Veneer is cost effective and strong, however, it can blister, delaminate, or peel back at the edges. Also, since veneer is glued to a plywood or medium density fiberboard substrate the edges must be covered.
Hardwood plywood veneer selection is often limited, and you may have to special-order and still be limited to a dozen or so of the most common wood types. Veneer plywood is usually not available in exotic woods. Veneer panels also can vary in thickness from their stated dimension due to the foreign origin of much of this material and the resulting metric thickness measurement. U.S.-made hardwood plywood has face veneers averaging 1/30? in thickness. Some species, such as black walnut, are sliced thinner, to 1/32?. Foreign veneers are thinner still and can be tough to saw without splintering, and sand without destroying. The variation in thickness also impacts your joints. If you really want a good-fitting joint, the solution requires extra work. You need to mill the plywood edge that fits in the dado of your project.
Use Dovetail Joints not Butt Joints
Joinery involves joining together pieces of wood, to create furniture, structures, toys, and other items. The strength, flexibility, and toughness of wooden joints derive from the properties of the joining materials and from how they are used in the joints. Therefore, different joinery techniques are used to meet differing requirements. When designing a poker chip case, you again have to take into account the weight of the chips. The joints have to be strong, or the case will fall apart under the weight.
A butt joint is a joinery technique in which two pieces of wood are joined by simply butting them together. The butt joint is the simplest joint to make since it merely involves cutting the wood to the appropriate length and butting them together. It is also the weakest because it relies upon glue alone to hold it together. Because the orientation of the wood usually presents only an end grain to long grain gluing surface, the resulting joint is inherently weak.
A dovetail joint is a joint technique most commonly used in woodworking joinery. Noted for its resistance to being pulled apart (tensile strength), the dovetail joint is commonly used to join the sides of a drawer to the front. A series of pins cut to extend from the end of one board interlock with a series of tails cut into the end of another board. The pins and tails have a trapezoidal shape. Once glued, a wooden dovetail joint requires no mechanical fasteners.
Use a Polyurethane not Oil Finish
One thing to consider when finishing a wooden chip case is to use a chip friendly finish. Polyurethane or a non-soluble varnish is an ideal choice, as it does not stain or seep into your chips. You should especially avoid any type of Oil finish such as Tung or Danish oil, as these oils can penetrate into the clay poker chip over time.
Use Inlays to Step it Up a Notch
Inlay is a decorative technique of inserting pieces of colored materials into depressions in a base object to form patterns or pictures. Inlays frequently use wood veneer, but other materials like stone or shell may also be used.
Inlay differs from marquetry, a similar technique, in that marquetry is applied over an entire surface of an object, whereas inlay consists of small pieces inserted into cut spaces in the base material.
Inlay is frequently used in production of decorative furniture, where pieces of colored wood or metal are inserted into the veneer. Using this technique can create a one-of-a-kind piece suitable for display.
Use a Raised Panel or Glass Top
Adding a decorative lid to your poker chip case can also create a unique custom effect.
Frame and panel construction (also called "rail and stile") is a woodworking technique commonly used in the making of doors, wainscoting, and other decorative features for cabinets and furniture. The basic idea is to capture a 'floating' panel within a sturdy frame, as opposed to techniques like slab drawer fronts which are simply single pieces of material with exposed end grains. Usually, the panel is not glued to the frame - it is left to 'float' within it so that seasonal movement of the wood comprising the panel does not distort the frame or crack to wood.
The same technique can be used with a glass insert instead of a wood panel. The glass can be left clear to display of your chips, or etched with a decorative design or perhaps the name of your home casino.
So whether you are building or purchasing a custom wooden poker chip case to house your chips, consider incorporating these few little extras to take it up a notch and make your ordinary wooden case extraordinary.