Entering a new realm of product this month…. board games. Mark and I have chatted before about making kids toys from plywood such as puzzles and cut out shapes, but until now games for adults hadn’t really been on the cards (excuse the pun!).
It all started when we met a friendly chap called Chris at Netil Market in London Fields back in April. He spotted our products and was keen to see if we could make his vision of a contemporary backgammon set a reality. With a background in architecture and surveying, Chris sent over some detailed 3D sketches of the board game complete with measurements so we had something solid to work from.
Chris’s sketch
We chatted the design through and made some minor adjustments to the spec based on the thickness of the plywood, then used CAD to sketch up the final drawing ready for laser cutting. Chris selected the colours from some swatches of painted plywood, and we love his final selection of the grey contrasted with the luders green!
Colour options for Chris to choose from
A CAD of the disc counters
The next part was the fun bit, making it. Mark laser cut all of the pieces from plywood and together we sanded off the burnt edges and glued them in several stages for the construction.
Once the frame was constructed, more sanding has to be done to ensure the box was beautifully smooth and that all of the edges alined. I hand-sprayed the colour onto the marquetry pieces using an airbrush and watered down paint, and once dry I applied a layer of varnish before inserting and gluing to the board.
The round discs ended up taking about a day to make, mostly because there were so many of them and each had to undergo a number of processes from hand-sanding to spraying on colour, and gluing to varnishing. They were really satisfying to make though and look really neat!
Once the box was fully constructed and all of the marquetry inserted, the next step was to varnish the entire thing, twice. A light sand was done in-between each layer to make sure it has that super smooth finish.
ET VOILA! OUR FIRST EVER BOARD GAME COMMISSIONED BY CHRIS.
A big thank you to Chris for giving us the opportunity to make something as unique as this for him. We hope he gets many hours of enjoyment out of playing this game… what a special piece to own.
Here it is in it’s full glory….
“We were attracted to the Studio Mali stall at Netil Market on a sunny Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago by their simple yet beautifully designed place mats and coasters. We had a chat with delightful Mark who explained a bit about Studio Mali and how they make their designs. We also asked about Commissions. We went home and pondered and discussed and got in touch with Mark by email and that was the birth of a bespoke Backgammon set. We collected the Backgammon set and the placemats and coasters from Mark and Ali a couple of weeks later and they are even more beautiful than we could have hoped for. It is such a joy to have things in your home which are beautiful and useful and made with such love and passion. Thank you Mark and Ali so much for making and designing these oh so special pieces for us. We feel some more Commissions coming on!"
— Chris and Julie Ttoffali