Made this board, table, for my buddy's wife this winter for her to put her scrabble board on. My buddy's buddy got a laser etcher?? this winter and did the etching, engraving on it. Yes, I know there may be infringement, copyright issues, but I only made the board. It is solid cherry, with the exception of the bottom of the drawer.

That is Awesome!!!!!!!!!!!

That is insanely awesome Kenny! I love that.

Now, how did you program that laser to do that? I know it's a long answer, but the basics such as, do you have to create all those lines individually or do you have a grid program or? Those would go over incredibly well at the craft shows.

 

Here is a thought, with board games the mechanics of the game are not under copyright, but typically rules are copyright. And the rules are the game so it's a catch 22. The fact that I even know that means I have been spending too much time researching open source projects for our wiki, and not enough time in my shop!

But Kenny, if you were to take the name scrabble off the board, and call it, Word Mix or something like that, you'd be good to go I think. Even the tiles are not copyrighted, again only the rules.

 

Just think of the game of Chess, or Backgammon, we make those all day long in our shops and sell them, of course those two board games are out of copyright, but it's fun to think about what we could do in wood and recreate some fun games.

 

I know you're not thinking of selling a production of these, but it's fun to talk about.

Cool project.  For a gift, who cares about copyrights.  But if you wanted to sell, maybe look into it..  

3 minutes ago, Woodbutcherbynight said:

For a gift, who cares about copyrights.

Agreed.

On 4/28/2019 at 8:33 PM, John Morris said:

That is insanely awesome Kenny! I love that.

Now, how did you program that laser to do that? I know it's a long answer, but the basics such as, do you have to create all those lines individually or do you have a grid program or? 

I didn't do the etching, engraving on this john, so I have absolutely no idea of how it was programmed, or what is involved with that aspect of it.

11 minutes ago, Kenny Tarmack said:

didn't do the etching, engraving on this john,

Of course, sheesh, read better John! The table is completely awesome too Kenny, great job! And it's wonderful to see you around these parts again.

Great job on the board Kenny.  Did you do the table also, or just the box under the board, or all three?  The box looks great too, and is needed for all those game pieces.

 

As for copying the board game, stuff like this comes up quite a bit on a vinyl forum I am on.  My understanding is that you can pretty much do/copy anything "for your own use".  Not as a gift, but only for your own use.  Most companies are very difficult/expensive to get a license to use their designs.  Some routinely monitor places like ebay and etsy looking for knock offs.  I have even read of some that troll for people to copy their work, and then sue them when it's done.

 

That said, I have seen a lot of stuff at craft shows that you would not put up on an on line market...

That game table is awesome, Kenny. The game board and tiles took a good sized laser and a good chunk of time to program. And, no small amount of skills, too. Great collaboration. 

Edited April 30, 20197 yr by Gene Howe

Along with others, that is an awesome idea and product.