Shogi is Japanese Chess

First of all, my Network+ certification training at Techskills is going extremely well. We’re hoping that I’ll be able to take the exam on Monday, but we’re not sure if they’ll let me schedule it that soon.

Now, on with the post!

For a VERY long time, I have desired a shogi board. Shogi, as the title says, is Japanese chess. It’s played on a 9x9 board with 20 pieces per side with similar(ish) rules. But, any time I’ve found a shogi board, it’s cost has been at least 30 dollars and usually was going to cost me another 10 dollars in shipping as well.

So, I decided, quite suddenly, that I should just build my own. I tried to look online to find some form of instructions for building your own shogi board. Much to my surprise, there’s none. Even finding information on what size to make your pieces is non-existent. So here are my instructions that I will be updating as I go (I’ll just add a new post, instead of adding on to this post specifically).

It should be noted that my skill in wood workings is novice (beginner if you’re feeling generous with me). I know how to cut and measure, but I’ve never tried anything like this.

First of all, here’s my list of needed materials.

1 - 1"x8"x4' Pine board

3 - 1/2" x 2" x 3' Pine boards

2 - 3/8" x 2" x 2' Pine boards

1 - Pack of small hinges

1 – 3 pack (at least) of transferable wax paper (the kind you use to make custom t-shirts)

1 - latch

1 - foam pad

1 – fine grit sand paper

Black paint

varnish (color of your choosing)

Here’s the 4-foot pine board. I chose pine because I like the color of it. It’s a nice light color that stains to many colors well (in my opinion).

I wanted to make a 1’x 1’ shogi board, but I realized that 1’ wide planks are very expensive. So, I chose to change the size of my board to 16”x16”. To accomplish this, I selected a 1”x8”x4’ plank and made my cuts at 16”, leaving me with three 1”x8”x16” lengths.

Of course, no plank is ever really the width it claims to the actual dimensions were closer to .75”x7”x16” planks. Even though I knew this from the start, I left it a little extra wide for the next step.

If you look closely, you’ll see that my cuts weren’t exactly 16” their width is slightly different. Since I plan on putting hinges on this so they fold on top of each other when not in use, I want them to be perfectly (or at least very close to it) flushed. The extra width let me shave off the length until I got them to the correct size.

The next step is setting up the 9x9 boxes. I' decided that 1.5”x1.5” squares would be a nice size (making the playing area 13.5”x13.5”)

The best way I found to measure this distance was to come in 1.25 inches from the sides (while your board is 16” of course) and 6.75 inches DOWN from where the two side will join together. The reason for coming from the “middle” of the board is simple. Since the board is 9x9 squares, that means each side will be 9x4.5. Or to put it another way, the middle row will be divided on either side. To make sure the boxes stay the same size and to avoid having a middle row that is either a lot wider or thinner than the rest of the boxes, it’s imperative to measure from the middle to the bottom on each board. I messed up a lot on getting the measurements right and had to do a lot of erasing and remeasuring to get it right. Don’t worry about leaving behind pencil marks, we’ll get them out when we sand.

If you look closely you can see all the lines I tried to erase on the top board (the one I did first). To make sure the lines met up right on both sides, I marked where each line would go on the border and then placed each board flush against the other. I lined up both hash marks with a straight edge and made one continuous line from top to bottom. The 4 dots you see (located on the third intersection as you move in from each corner diagonally) indicate the promotion zones in shogi.

Now that the lines are made, it’s time to make some grooves! Rather than just paint the lines I just made with pencil, I thought it would look really nice if I took my brother’s dremel (thanks for letting me borrow it Andrew!) and use the dremel attachment #192 to make some nice clean rows. In the photo above I had already made the top to bottom grooves (the one that spans both pieces of the board) by placing the two sides together and making one continuous cut.

However, I made two grave miscalculations. The first was that I didn’t make sure that the attachment was completely tight and the depth changed on me in the middle of the cut. I was able to fix it, but it shows at one spot. The second is in the middle of cutting, I discovered that the surface I was using was not level. The table in the picture can come together but the side on the left is higher than the right. It made for some… shallow grooves in the middle.

To make sure the cuts went straight I used a long piece of wood as a guide to push the dremel against (a tip I got from my brother).

Here’s the end result after making the grooves. If you look at the first row down from the top on the left side you’ll notice it looks different than the rest of the cuts. I took a break in the middle of making the grooves. I set the dremel tool down without taking out the attachment or changing any setting. But, when I came back, I was horrified to discover it cutting MUCH deeper into the wood. I ran it over a scrap piece of wood, and after a second it was back at the right depth. I have no idea why it did this. I could go back and use the third 16” segment, but I think it’s good for some of your mistakes to stick around. It keeps you humble and reminds you not to make them again the next time around.

Here’s the same piece after I sanded it. It looks a lot nicer and prepared it for affixing the wax paper to it as well as the varnish. (If you want to see what I’m talking about with the wax paper, check this out.

Here’s both sides sanded and put together for your viewing pleasure, they aren’t lined up right so the lines looked eschewed.

Here’s a little peek into what I’m planning for this project.

Once I varnish the wood, I’m going to attach the 1/2” wood to the bottom of the board to make a storage area for the shogi pieces. I’ve bought some foam that will be glued into the shown area with. The foam will have cut out spots for the shogi pieces to fit into. Well… at least that’s the idea. We’ll see how it goes.

Shogi is Japanese Chess