How to Make a Leather Game Board

You can make a leather game board for any game you like ' checkers, chess, backgammon or any other favorites. This is a good project for those who have acquired some experience in tooling leather.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Tools And Vegetable-tanned Leathers
• Acrylic Paints
• Paintbrushes
• Sponges
• Swivel Knives
• Wood Or Rawhide Mallets
• Water
• Pencils
• Empty Ballpoint Pens
• Tracing Paper
• Rulers
• Straightedges

1. Determine the desired dimensions of the board and cut a piece of vegetable-tanned leather to those dimensions. See 'eHow to Cut Leather' for instructions.
2. Draw the design for the game board onto a piece of tracing film that has been cut to the same dimensions as the board.
3. Refer to an existing board that is made for the game for which your board will be made. You can even trace its design onto the tracing film.
4. Consider creating a 1- to 2-inch decorative border around the perimeter of a board with a checkered design.
5. Refer to 'eHow to Tool Leather' for instructions on transferring the board design onto the leather and using a swivel knife to cut the design into the leather.
6. Create a checkerboard design by making evenly spaced horizontal and vertical cuts on the leather. Use a beveling tool and mallet worked along the cut edges of every other resulting square.
7. Use a pear shading tool, camouflage tool or any textured stamps to depress and texture the squares on which the beveling tool has been used. This will produce an alternating series of raised and depressed squares.
8. Use two colors of acrylic paints, if desired, to paint the squares in alternating colors. Or, use just one color of paint for every other square and leave the remaining squares the color of the leather.
9. Dye the leather, if desired. Any dying should be done after the leather is tooled and before it is painted. See 'eHow to Paint Leather' and eHow to Dye Leather' for instructions.

Tips & Warnings

• Look for suitable border designs in leather-tooling pattern books.
• Use any leather scraps to create game pieces for the board.