Solid Wood Pai Sho Board

Pai Sho is a board game which appeared in the Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. Both series showed pieces of the game play, but neither took the time to teach the rules.

Fortunately, a number of great minds came together to create a set of rules for playing the game and bonding over these wonderful animated series. 

There are a number of variants of the game that came from these great minds. Most of the variations utilize the same Pai Sho board I will detail in these plans. Of course, which flavor of game play you want to play is up to you, but the board remains at the core.

Please keep in mind, this Pai Sho board is only one piece of the game. To fully play a game of Pai Sho, you will also need a set of tiles, an understanding of the rules, and likely someone to play with.

I hope you enjoy making the board and getting to play on it and talk about it over a cup of tea, shared with friends.

If the steps outlined here are beyond what you feel comfortable doing, but you still want a Pai Sho board then you are in luck! I sell made to order Pai Sho boards on my website, you can even customize the species of wood.

Materials

• 2 Board Feet - Oak (Dark Wood)
• 1 Board Feet - Aspen (Light Wood)
• 1.5 Board Feet - Mahogany (Color Wood)

Cuts

• (1) 8 in. x 8 in. Light Wood
• (1) 8 in. x 8 in. Color Wood
• (4) 10 in. x 5 in. Dark Wood
• (4) 4 in. x 4 in. Color Wood

Supplies

• Wood Glue
• Saw
• Router
• V-bit
• Straight bit
• Circle Cutting Jig (Trammel)
• Painters' Tape
• Finish

Creating a Pai Sho board from solid wood looks daunting at first glance, but once you take a look at the geometry, you can see it is a matter of a few simple glue ups to get the seemingly complex pattern to reveal itself.

To understand how to create the board, and ultimately how to assemble the board, start in the center. There is a square made up of four equal sized triangles. 

On each hypotenuse of the triangles, there is an equal length board, with the far edge of it having an arc to match the radius of the circle.

Connecting each of these boards is another triangle with an arc in lieu of the hypotenuse. 

When broken down into the simple shapes, the project becomes much simpler. 

Fortunately, the board’s playing field lends a hand in helping us determine the measurements of each of these areas of the board. Once we overlay the grid on the board, our base measurements become clear. Each square is 1 in. x 1 in.

Let us then, work from the center out to build the center of our board. 

Referencing the grid, each triangle has two sides which are 7 in. long (and a hypotenuse of 9.899 in., if you were wondering).

So, begin by gluing up two blanks of wood which are 8 in. x 8 in. each. The oversize gives us some trim allowance. One blank should be made using a light wood, like aspen, and one blank should be made using a red hue wood, like mahogany. 

Once the glue is dried, using a miter saw, cut a 45-deg. cut through the center of each of the glue ups, giving you 2 triangles from each. Take extra care to get this cut as exact to 45 deg. as possible.

Next, for each of the triangles, measure 7 in. from the right angle and trim to this length. You should end up with two sides at 7 in. and the hypotenuse at 9.899 in.

Now you will need to glue together one of your light triangles with one of the red hue triangles. Spread glue on the 7 in. sides, press together, and then ensure they are even with each other by pressing them up against a straight edge (I use my table saw fence). Use painter’s tape to clamp them together.

Repeat for the other two triangles.

Once the glue has dried, check that the long sides are flush, if not, lightly sand them flush. We need a flat surface for the next glue up.

Next, spread glue on the now 14 in. sides of the two larger triangles and carefully align them and use painters' tape to clamp the two halves together.

Once the glue is dried, measure to ensure you have four sides measuring 7 in. each. If you do not, trim the wood to 7 in., making sure to keep the center point in the center.

Now that the center is ready, the next step is to build out the outer ring of the board. To do this, you will need to glue the dark wood onto each side of the center.

In this case, I like to cut my dark pieces of wood to be longer and deeper than I will need, and I trim it later with the saw and the router.

For this step, I like to handle it in two phases to make my life easier. I start by gluing on only two of the outer ring sides, opposite of each other. Once the glue is dry, I trim them flush. It makes getting the two sides flush with the center easier. Be careful not to trim off any of the center though. A crosscut sled on a table saw makes this process easy.

Once those two sides are trimmed to length, you can precisely trim the remaining two sides and glue into place.

Of course, you can precisely time your outer ring sides and glue them all in place at once, saving you some time.

Once the glue up is completed, you should have a squat cross-shaped board.

We are nearly done with gluing, just four relatively easy corner pieces to glue into place.

If you took time and care in getting all of the other pieces glued up and your tools are square, this should be simple. 

Cut the corner pieces to fit and glue them into place.

One of my tools is perpetually just out of square, so I need to do some precise trimming at this step, every time. It is worth the effort to get it perfect so there are no gaps you need to contend with later.

Likely at this point you will have a 20 in. by 20 in. makings of a Pai Sho board. And if you are like me, you do not have a planer or a thickness sander that can fit that large blank (nor should you try putting this through a planer since the grain direction is all over the place).

This leaves you with a few options to get both sides of the board flat and parallel. 

1. Sanding
2. Router Flattening Jig
3. CNC Router Flattening Program

Sanding

Sanding is how I flattened my first Pai Sho board and it works. It isn’t fast, but it is relatively safe. Plus, you will want to do some sanding on the board eventually, so this just takes a little longer to get it done.

One thing to keep in mind, because this happened to me, try to avoid over sanding in areas as you will end up with valleys in the board. 

Router Flattening Jig

The next method is to bolt together a quick router sled to use to flatten your board. Refer to the image for suggested construction. The thing to remember here is that the jig should be built to match your router. Also, you will need to shim the board to ensure it is stable while you are routing it. And finally, this jig can be used for the next step as well.

To use the jig, install a flat-bottomed bit into your router and progressively run it over the surface in as many passes as it takes for a flat board. Flip the board and repeat the process.

CNC Router Flattening Program

If you are as lucky as I am to have a large format CNC that can fit the board, plop it on there, level it, and have the CNC do the hard work for you.

Once your board is flat, it is time to get out a ruler and a pencil. You need to mark a 1 in. grid on the board to use as a reference for routing in the next step. Make sure to draw the grid on the side of the board you want to play on.

Begin by getting a compass with the ability to have a 9 in. radius. If you do not have one on hand, a pencil attached to a piece of wood with a nail in it (9 in. from pencil tip to nail) will work in a pinch.

Place the compass pivot point in the center of the board where the triangles meet. Draw a complete circle on the board.

Next, in the middle of the board begin drawing the center crosshairs. These should line up with the seams of the triangles in the center.

From these, measure out every inch and mark the line. Your whole board will be covered. Take your time and measure well, it will be worth it for the next step.

Work until you reach the circle drawn earlier. 

After the grid is laid out, the next step is to route in the grid. This is a time-consuming step, but patience and precision really will pay off in the end.

Load a v-bit into your router. Attach the board to a flat surface like a sheet of hardboard or a table saw. I like to use double sided tape for this as it stays out of the way. You could also use the painter’s tape and super glue trick for a similar effect.

Using the router jig from earlier, begin routing along the lines. Set the bit depth so it just barely marks the board. I shoot for a 1/16 in. deep of a groove. Make sure to clamp the jig down so it does not move while you are routing. 

Route each line up to the circle that was drawn earlier.

You will watch your board come to life in this step.

Keep your v-bit in your router, but now it is time to dust off your trammel, or circle cutting, attachment for the router. If your trammel is like mine, you will need to drill a small hole in the center of the board for the pivot to rest in. This can be filled later with a dowel.

Reset the height of your v-bit to again cut about 1/16 in. deep. Slowly and carefully route the outside boundary of the board.

Once completed, swap out the v-bit for a straight bit on your router. It is time to cut out the final shape of the playing board.

Flip the board over and place it on a sacrificial material to protect the surface of whatever it is on, once you cut through.

Adjust the trammel distance, adding 1 in. to the radius. You will be cutting out a 10 in. radius.

Using multiple passes, progressively cut out the board from the unneeded material. I like to take passes at ½ the diameter of the bit I am using.

Flip the board over and place it on a sacrificial material to protect the surface of whatever it is on, once you cut through.

Adjust the trammel distance, adding 1 in. to the radius. You will be cutting out a 10 in. radius.

Using multiple passes, progressively cut out the board from the unneeded material. I like to take passes at ½ the diameter of the bit I am using.

Now that the board is cut out and the main work is done, the only thing left to do is to sand and apply finish to the board. Take the time to clean up each of the grooves with sandpaper. This helps remove any of the fuzzy bits left by the router. The process is a bit tedious, but again, this is one of those steps that makes a huge difference.

I sand the both the top and the bottom surfaces progressively to 220 grit. You can go higher if you would like, but it is not necessary for an item that feels good in your hands.

Once sanding is completed, wipe down the board with mineral spirits to clean up the sanding dust.

Apply your preferred finish. I find that Danish Oil does a great job of allowing the wood to speak for itself. It also highlights the attention to detail you took in sanding.