square punch, about 1"x1"

[bigprairie]

Hello,

I'm thinking of making a Scrabble board with a leather surface. I was thinking of making it with leather glued on a wooden board. Since I'd like the letters to sit-in, it might be nice to make it with two pieces, one with the square holes cut out (with cardboard glued below for structural integrity), and the other leather glued below that so the tiles can sit on it. I can even embellish the special squares with patterns and color on the bottom surface.

This all begs the question of where I get myself a square punch. Scrabble tiles are about 7/8" x 7/8", but 1" x 1" will probably do. I can't seem to find square punches in the normal catalogues or websites. Does any one know where I might get myself one for a reasonable price? Since the board is 15 by 15, I need to punch-out 225 squares.

The best idea I had was to get a square aluminum tube at OSH and file it down. Dunno if this will work, but I'd be willing to buy a nice punch if they are available. Thanks a bunch!

cheers,

Tae

Tae -

It might be worthwhile to check some of the Scrapbooking shops, perhaps Michael's - they have lots of different shaped paper punches with decent steel cutters in them. My wife has several different ones, snowflakes, geometric shapes, etc. They come with the steel cutter inside a hard plastic body - the paper slides in the bottom and the cutter is depressed with a short plunger from the top. You could try a small, inexpensive on and butcher it apart to get at the cutter to try on leather.

[Spider]

Tae, did you ever solve this problem? Maybe I could help. PM me.

[Tae]

Okay, after 6 months, here is the final product. I ended up hand carving everything. But I did buy a 1" aluminum square pipe and am sharpening it on a grinder for the "next" one.

Scrabble board

Thanks for your advice about the punch.