Your favorite wood combination

Hello!

I'm going to make my own chess board and I want to ask you all about what's your favorite wood combination in a chess board and why?

My favorite wood combination for a chess board is Padauk and Maple.  With this combination most all the chess piece woods will look good.  Of course Ebonized/Black, Rosewood, Sheesham and even Walnut for the dark pieces will work with the Padauk.  And the Maple will work well with Boxwood and Maple for the light pieces which pretty much is all you find.

Eyechess:  Is Paudauk  is the same as Bud Rosewood?  Do you have a picture of the board?

Go to the thread titled, "New wood grain Mouse Pad chess boards".  There you will see loubalch has a board pattern like this.

Here are some of my favorite boards:

2" Bloodwood & Northern Ash

2-1/8" Bloodwood & Maple

2.5" Padauk and Northern Ash

My design for a Padauk & Maple printed board. The file is available free for anyone wishing to reproduce for resale.

Palo Santo and Maple

Two awesome combos 

Padauk and Maple

Bog wood and Maple

Also saw some interesting maple burl light squares.

My favorite to actually play on has always been the cloth-backed vinyl roll-up kind.  They're cheap and you've got no worries about scrapes and dings.  When finished playing, just roll it up and put it back in the tube.  Because of the cloth backing, it flattens right out when you throw it on a table.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/530347511/quick-ship-brazilian-cherry-jatoba-and?ref=shop_home_active_22

I am a sucker for wood grain.  My vote would be for Maple and Walnut. My $.02 .

maple burl and walnut burl high grain

I have three boards that I like: maple-mahogany, maple-erable (stained blue, no gloss), and maple-walnut.  I love all my boards equally, when I'm using them, but I like my blue board and my maple-walnut boards the most.  I find that walnut, in particular, looks gorgeous!

Nathan, a pictures worth a thousand words. Three pics, please. I love looking at nice chess boards. Thanks.

Sure, loubalch!  I love looking at nice chess sets and boards, too.  I liked the pictures you posted the other day on the square size thread.  I will post my sets tomorrow (it's getting a bit late now).  A few caveats: I don't have a really good set yet to match my blue board; and the maple-mahogany board is an HOS entry-level one (but I still like it).  All of my boards are just veneer boards, and are not expensive...but I love them anyway.

Ok, loubalch, here you are:

Above: the House of Staunton Grandmaster 4" king series w/ 2.25" squares maple-mahogany veneer board.

Above: House of Staunton Players 3.75" king pieces on 2.25" squares maple-mahogany veneer board.  For various reasons, I am not altogether happy with this board.  I feel that the walnut veneer is too thin, and the colour of it looks faded--especially on the first and eighth ranks, although that is difficult to see in this image.  I am likely going to pair this set with a slightly smaller board, which I do not yet have.  Kindly excluse the clutter.  

Another photo below:

Next, a set (with a 3.5" king) that I could have really loved, had it not been for the knights, on my 2" maple and stained-blue-erable, non-gloss board from Rechapados Ferrer:

And last, my 3" king set of Windsor "laughing knight" pieces from Cool Chess Canada on a Rechapados Ferrer maple-walnut board.  (You can see that the board is much better than the HOS one above, although the brown isn't quite as dark as it could be).  It's a small set, and not expensive, but I really love it:

So, which one is my favourite?  Well, I like them all, but I like my two Rechapados Ferrer boards--both the maple-walnut and the maple-erable--the most.

Nathan,

I have a couple of those HoS veneer boards, they're okay, but I much prefer your Rechapados Ferrer boards. They really look nice. I like your blue board as well. What's your beef with the knights from this set, I can't get a good look from the picture above. How about a close up.

Hi loubalch,

Sorry for the wait!  Here's a pic that sort of shows it:

Hello, does anyone know where to get those non gloss boards from Rechapados? Only find it in high gloss.. I think that blue board would look very nice to antique pieces as well. 

BR Seb

For an everyday, goes-with-most-sets board, it has to be walnut (or ebony) and maple for me.

For a posh, cor-look-at-that board - exotic, swirly-burly woods I've likely never heard of or even seen before. Whatever they may be