Fix for warped wood chessboard

Hello, I have a problem with my bloodwood+maple with wenge border tower board. Hoping for some helpful advice from those with the knowhow. In the year I've had it, it has been wonderful to play on ( using my dubrovnik ver2 from chess bazaar). However in the winter ( relatively mild, didnt think it was too humid) just past several weeks ago, something has happened. For those unfamiliar with the tower series of chessboard there are four quarters that unite seamlessly, linked via magnets, to form the chessboard. Now I've noticed a gap where the joints now no longer unite completely, despite different configuations. Likely shrinkage or expansion methinks, and a woodworker has said there is some subtle cupping/bending though I cant see it myself.

On google there are remedies for warped wood boards ( not specifically chessboards) which include wrapping in soaked towels and ironing/sunning. Does anyone have experience with this? Curiously I had another tower board ( maple+purpleheart w walnut border) which arrived that winter noticeably cupped/warped. Sunning it helped significantly ( either that or it had acclimatized with time after arriving from the USA) but no such luck with the current one in question.

help?

regards

I'm assuming that the board is solid timber, not ply or some kind of composite.  A ply core for a veneer chessboard is actually fairly sensible and if its shrunk then you need to talk to the maker. 

Putting water and heat on a chessboard might not be a good idea, they are composed of a lot of separate pieces which will expand and contract at different rates that are characteristic of the different timbers used and there is some probability of damaging the finish and the structure. Adding water just puts the board out of equilibrium with its surroundings and it will start to dry out again.  Heat applied after water can have a variety of effects, moving the water around in the wood, forcing expansion, (you can take dents out that way), possibly creating some localised crushing of the cells to counter the natural cupping (which is why boards in wood floors in houses all cup in the same direction over decades of being washed).  Woodworkers tend not to try to fix cupping that way.  

Wood moves, a lot, in response to changes in humidity and by different amounts in different directions and everything depends on the orientation of the growth rings inside the board (if its solid timber) and on how it is glued together.  I think that that kind of shrinkage of timber is unsurprising, historically, cabinetmakers allowed for that kind of movement in their pieces so that small seasonal differences in size were not too visible.  With a board like that you can't really make any allowances for movement.  You should talk more to your woodworker friend about what may be going on with the wood.

Thank you. Food for thought. Yes it is solid wood. unfortunately the maker didnt have any good advice to give given different seasons in the US.

Try flipping the warped section around and and see if the opposite white square fits any better. If it does, you can reset the magnets, and the warp will be on the outside of the board. Just a thought.

Not sure if a reply is still needed, but I wanted to ask if:

1. The warping is still an issue

2. What was the fix?

I can only contribute this advice: When storing wooden chessboards, keep them UPRIGHT/VERTICAL instead of laying flat. It has something to do with even distribution of humidity. You can read more about it here:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/psa-store-your-chessboards-vertically

yep, vertical, just like LPs... 

Does wrapping the wooden board in plastic with one of those humidity packets thrown inside add to the prevention of warping while storing it vertically?

Those sachets have a limited life, they absorb moisture and when they are full, they stop absorbing moisture.  Why complicate life so much?  You want the board to be at equilibrium with the air around you, not at a completely different level of humidity.  Most boards will have been made in non-humidity controlled factories so sticking them somewhere very dry is actually likely to cause deformation.  Whether a board is stored vertically or horizontally shouldn't really matter unless its made of a material that is likely to creep (MDF, particle board, masonite) or it is stored with some weight on it and something under it that will tend to bend it over time.  

And this is why I live with the motto: When in doubt, ask.

ADDENDUM: I now realize that I've seen when these packs reach their maximum ability to absorb moisture, the paper package would then absorb the moisture, break apart eventually and spill the saturated silicone beads.

Thank you for your wisdom, @greghunt.

there are humidity control packets, those are moisture control ones. get the proper ones. they are often used in humidors and to store guitars. they retain moisture at a specific level, absorbing when too much, releasing when not enough.

example: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=boveda+58+humidity+pack&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

they come in different moisture levels as well. these do work to help wood from warping, people who store expensive wood guitars put them in the cases.

Now this next part is unconfirmed, but some folks do say that orientation of a stored chess board matters, mainly because whatever part is at the base will dry out less compared  to the top part, which will cause warping. So it is suggested you rotate the board from time to time and/or store it vertically to minimize the part that is not exposed to air and thus kepped “wet”

When I was researching this stuff (I read a few studies), I looked at wood/lumber in general, for example, raw/untreated/freshly cut wood boards (e.g., 2x4's); it is well known that both sides of the boards need to be equally exposed to airflow, otherwise they will warp; put into practice, spacers (called "stickers") are used to create separation between the boards when they are stacked into a lumber pile. From this we know for a fact that unequal exposure to airflow can cause warping to occur, and therefore we know the same applies to a chessboard; with that said, a chessboard is obviously more resilient to warping than an untreated/unfinished wood board (because a chessboard is made from dried/sealed/finished wood), however, I would treat it the same way as an unfinished wood board out of an abundance of caution (we know chessboards can warp!).

Boards are stickered so that they dry evenly, warping is a side-effect of drying, made worse by uneven distribution of moisture.  Moisture moves in and out of wood quite slowly, faster in the case of something thin like a chess board, very slow in the case of a large flitch. Timber shrinks as it dries and expands as it takes up moisture, its just the nature of the stuff, if its cut the right way the deformation is pretty much invisible, cut the wrong way (which is also the easiest and highest yield approach) then it can warp very badly.  Timber also moves as internal stresses are relieved, that is, it can warp just from being cut because some of the wood is in more tension than other parts of it.  

That wood has been dried does not stop it taking up moisture.  Sealing it on one side, a high finish on one side and some kind of glued fabric or felt on the other for example) will incline it to moving when one side is wetter than the other due to it being out of equilibrium with its environment, but what kind of warping you get will depend on the structure of the board and which way the growth rings run.  The problem there is the lack of equilibrium.  It may or may not straighten out when it reaches equilibrium.  

Humidity control packets are exhausted in the same way as the silica gel dessicant packets unless your ambient humidity is oscillating around the target humidity of the control packet.  Have a read of the vendor's website.  They seem to assume either short term use or some other active management of humidity.  

Sorry i can't help with your problem, but I guess all I can tell you is it happens because, well, wood. On most tournament sized boards, small amounts of warpage or bowing are not going to be noticeable, but when you have one such as yours, where four pieces that may have warped in their own seperate ways need to fit together, you're going to notcie the gaps that causes when you put it together.

That being sad, I sometimes will make a large board by hand painting a nice, flat piece of hardwood-veneer plywood, and I of course choose the flattest piece of wood I can pick out for this, but even then, it's still going to warp a bit. Again, normally you're not going to notice this, so don't get too hung up about it. The final touch on all my boards is the placement of a few felt rounds on the bottom of the corners of the board and also one in the middle, which I think prevents bowing. I also use the convex side of the wood, if any, for the playing side. Between those two things, that board will always lay stable on even a flat, glass table.

Would you be able to get measurements of how out of square those pieces are? It's an interesting shrink/expand issue and I wonder if it is somehow related to the frame. Essentially, can you check and see if the measurements along the frame have remained matched, while the measurements that include the playing squares have changed? This would potentially speak to the wood either being unbalanced in moisture when first made, or, the magnet slots might have unfinished surfaces that are allowing an altered rate of moisture exchange.