rpoir001
New Member
Forgive me if this is not the right place to post this.
I just joined this forum because I have been searching around for wooden poker chip inspiration, and have seen a couple posts on here (particularly in this subsection). I have been thinking about making a wooden poker chip set for my boss as a gift. Wanted to put this post out there for any feedback you all might have on how to improve the set as I move forward. I have read some of the pros and cons from the prior threads regarding wooden chips, and while it's all understood, I just want to set the back drop that this is really meant to be a "wow that's cool" gift for a guy that plays very low-stakes games with his friends purely for bragging rights. In essence, the set is meant to be the flex, that none of his friends has.
Anyway, I started by looking around to see who else had taken this journey. It seems like a couple people had, or planned to, but they mostly had been buying pre-cut solid rounds or cutting their own rounds and then putting a design on them. While the results have looked solid, from my experience, they would not come anywhere near a standard poker chip weight. The density of the wood just isnt enough by itself - they would roughly be about 3 grams each at 3.5mm thick and 39mm diameter. Exotic woods would be a bit heavier at like 3.5-4g, but still a bit far from the "normal feel". That said, I needed to put a metal insert into the middle to give it some more weight. Again, I have read the cons about that, mostly regarding the artificial nature/sound/etc. But again, special circumstance.
As well, most of the other posts seem to be using a single species of wood and then either dying the rounds different colors or putting art on the chips to distinguish them. I am taking the route that one user commented - combining 4-5 naturally different contrasting woods and really letting the wood be the star of the show. That said, I am looking at putting together a set with 1) yellow heart, 2) purple heart, 3) leopard wood, 4) zebra wood, and 5) ziricote. Something like the rendering uploaded is what I am going for. It should give you an idea of the vision and differentiation.
So here is where I am currently at with my prototype. This is where I would love the feedback. I started with just cutting rounds out of luan wood. Those weigh next to nothing. Then I hand cut some red oak and put a metal washer in the middle. Those were brittle and not that valuable for testing (wrong wood). Switch to maple with the insert. Then I got a hobby CNC (not just for this project) and that made the first set of "perfect" rounds with maple. Then my latest was rounds with yellow heart on the far right. You can see some of them have spots for edge details (was going to try something there, but ended up not and just cut the circle anyway). The yellow heart ones are ~4.3mm thick and 39mm in diameter and weigh 9.5grams each. Obviously the elephant in the room is the seam in the middle because its two pieces of wood put together with an insert, but I figure there is no way around that if you want it to have some material weight. Then in my current version 6, I have 12 chips in that sheet that need to be cut out. Each one will center within the 6 white epoxy edge markers. These are going to be ~3.45mm thick and 39mm diameter and weigh the about 9.4grams each. (side note, that version 6 is lacquer-finished yellow heart, but it was from a tree that didnt have the classic bright yellow look, so these are just fine tuning the design really because I absolutely want that vibrant yellow color...at least for the initial "wow" until they fade or get hit with UV/oxidation lol)
Anyway, that is the end of the current progress. Would love to hear any thoughts on how to make these better. One thing I guess I would really love is feedback on is the coloring of the 6 spots on the edge detail. Would you make them all white across the various species or change the color for each? Or would you nix the 6 spots entirely? I read one post that said sorting should happen exclusively by the edge profile instead of the face. But I am thinking (and could be way off) that the distinct coloring of the wood should make it pretty clear which is which, and that the edge profile is purely to add an extra element when stacking (ability to count chips in a stack better). I could very well not to the epoxy dots and just have pure wood like in the rendering, and really let the wood do all the talking, but i figured the dots might be a nice touch (TBD - will post the pictures when I get them cut out)
Let me know your thoughts!
Rendering:
Version 1-5:
Current version 6:
I just joined this forum because I have been searching around for wooden poker chip inspiration, and have seen a couple posts on here (particularly in this subsection). I have been thinking about making a wooden poker chip set for my boss as a gift. Wanted to put this post out there for any feedback you all might have on how to improve the set as I move forward. I have read some of the pros and cons from the prior threads regarding wooden chips, and while it's all understood, I just want to set the back drop that this is really meant to be a "wow that's cool" gift for a guy that plays very low-stakes games with his friends purely for bragging rights. In essence, the set is meant to be the flex, that none of his friends has.
Anyway, I started by looking around to see who else had taken this journey. It seems like a couple people had, or planned to, but they mostly had been buying pre-cut solid rounds or cutting their own rounds and then putting a design on them. While the results have looked solid, from my experience, they would not come anywhere near a standard poker chip weight. The density of the wood just isnt enough by itself - they would roughly be about 3 grams each at 3.5mm thick and 39mm diameter. Exotic woods would be a bit heavier at like 3.5-4g, but still a bit far from the "normal feel". That said, I needed to put a metal insert into the middle to give it some more weight. Again, I have read the cons about that, mostly regarding the artificial nature/sound/etc. But again, special circumstance.
As well, most of the other posts seem to be using a single species of wood and then either dying the rounds different colors or putting art on the chips to distinguish them. I am taking the route that one user commented - combining 4-5 naturally different contrasting woods and really letting the wood be the star of the show. That said, I am looking at putting together a set with 1) yellow heart, 2) purple heart, 3) leopard wood, 4) zebra wood, and 5) ziricote. Something like the rendering uploaded is what I am going for. It should give you an idea of the vision and differentiation.
So here is where I am currently at with my prototype. This is where I would love the feedback. I started with just cutting rounds out of luan wood. Those weigh next to nothing. Then I hand cut some red oak and put a metal washer in the middle. Those were brittle and not that valuable for testing (wrong wood). Switch to maple with the insert. Then I got a hobby CNC (not just for this project) and that made the first set of "perfect" rounds with maple. Then my latest was rounds with yellow heart on the far right. You can see some of them have spots for edge details (was going to try something there, but ended up not and just cut the circle anyway). The yellow heart ones are ~4.3mm thick and 39mm in diameter and weigh 9.5grams each. Obviously the elephant in the room is the seam in the middle because its two pieces of wood put together with an insert, but I figure there is no way around that if you want it to have some material weight. Then in my current version 6, I have 12 chips in that sheet that need to be cut out. Each one will center within the 6 white epoxy edge markers. These are going to be ~3.45mm thick and 39mm diameter and weigh the about 9.4grams each. (side note, that version 6 is lacquer-finished yellow heart, but it was from a tree that didnt have the classic bright yellow look, so these are just fine tuning the design really because I absolutely want that vibrant yellow color...at least for the initial "wow" until they fade or get hit with UV/oxidation lol)
Anyway, that is the end of the current progress. Would love to hear any thoughts on how to make these better. One thing I guess I would really love is feedback on is the coloring of the 6 spots on the edge detail. Would you make them all white across the various species or change the color for each? Or would you nix the 6 spots entirely? I read one post that said sorting should happen exclusively by the edge profile instead of the face. But I am thinking (and could be way off) that the distinct coloring of the wood should make it pretty clear which is which, and that the edge profile is purely to add an extra element when stacking (ability to count chips in a stack better). I could very well not to the epoxy dots and just have pure wood like in the rendering, and really let the wood do all the talking, but i figured the dots might be a nice touch (TBD - will post the pictures when I get them cut out)
Let me know your thoughts!
Rendering:
Version 1-5:
Current version 6:
