The Agon Board Arrives!

Saturday, 13th December 2014

Last week, I posted about my experiment of a laser etched Agon board. The purpose was twofold: I wanted to see the quality of the pieces produced by laser cutting and laser etching, and I also wanted an economical way to produce Agon, since hand building it is very time consuming. This Wednesday the board arrived, so I can share pictures as promised.

The cutting is very clean as you'd expect for laser etching. Shading proved to be prohibitively expensive, so I decorated the "shaded" squares with a simple fleur-de-lys outline, which is very effective. The alternative would be hand-staining the squares, which would save little in costs but cost much in time.

The one criticism I have is the burn marks around the edge. This may be expected as part of the laser cutting process, but it means that the board would need sanding before it becomes saleable. It will still need finishing with cellulose like my hand made boards, so if some light sanding is sufficient to get rid of the burning marks then it won't be too much of a problem.

I've taken several photographs to show the whole board, some close-ups to show the decoration, and another close-up to show the burning around the edge. I'm currently awaiting delivery of some pieces. In the mean time, I'll sand and finish the board and investigate options for packaging.

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