Oak Monopoly Board

I am a student at Illiana Christian High School in Dyer Indiana, I am in 11th grade and enjoy engineering a lot. I wanted to build a monopoly board but also put a twist on the classic board game and make it out of oak wood, I designed it in fusion and ended up deciding to try and make it in the shop, this project was a good challenge and helped me learn a lot about wood working because of it.

To make this you will need oak wood, 1/4 in mdf, wood glue, monopoly pieces, handles, and wood stain.

Tools you will need are a CNC machine, laser cutter, table saw, sand paper, nail gun, and a chop saw.

To get the best results you will want to design your idea in Fusion 360 to get a good idea of the necessary dimensions and materials you will want in your final product.

Find some good wood that you will want to use for the board (this wood should be at least 10in wide). you will lose some material in the process so make sure you grab pleanty.

Cut 4 10x10 squares out of the wood you chose earlier. Make sure all of the squares are close to the same size to prevent too much material loss.

Glue the squares together in sets of 2 and scrape off the glue when you are done. Make sure that you do not clamp them down too hard or they may warp which will affect the quality of your final product.

Scrape off all the access glue and cut off the rough edges.

Take your 2 pieces and glue them together to make 1 large square, make sure this one is clamped down more loosely than the last step because this will be the piece most prone to warping. After that do all of the finishing shown in the previous step after the glue has dried.

To get the top of the wood flat I used a CNC router to do a facing pass over the entire square and then lightly sanded it down with a handheld orbital sander.

I wanted to make a box for my board so I used a chop saw to cut 45 degree angles on a 3.5x19.5 inch piece of oak. These pieces need to be exactly the same size so you may want to grab an extra piece of wood in case you mess up.

To put the body together first I got the angles square, then I put glue on the edges of the boards, and finally I nailed the boards together. Make sure you have the boards aligned right before you put in a nail because if they aren't a nail may shoot out the side or the final piece might not line up.

To cut a lip into the lid i brought it to the table saw and cut a horizontal notch just under halfway between the top and the bottom, after that I resized the blade and cut off the bottom side of the notch which left me with a lip for the lid to sit on the box.

I first put my box on the table saw to get the saw set to the right size and then cut a 1/4in piece of maple mdf to the set size and then nailed it to the bottom of the box and finally sanded it down so it was flush with the box. i also made some areas inside the box for pieces to go while the game is not in use.

To get the board onto the piece of wood I used a laser cutter and engraved the outlines of the board using an option from lightburn software. After that I se the origin to the desired location and made sure the board was square with the origin before I started the engraving which took about 10 minutes.

To stain the materials I used a medium stain so it wouldn't be too dark. I then used cloth towels and applied the stain going with the grain then wiped the access off when it was stained properly. i also stained the inside of the box and the bottom of both pieces even though it wasn't necessary.

To add more color to the board I attached handles, these handles help a lot when carrying the board because it is large and weighs around 9 pounds. These handles also make the box look good aesthetically and complement the stained oak very well.

To finish up the box I bought another board and took the pieces from it to use inside the box. after this the box is finished and you are ready to start playing this classic board game with your friends and family.

Here are some pictures of the final product in better quality.