Onefinity CNC Projects: How to Make a Scrabble Board with a CNC Cutting Machine

Ah, Scrabble - the classic game of wit and wisdom that puts you and your opponent's vocabulary to the test. If you're a fan of Scrabble, this is the project for you! That is, unless you're short on time, because whereas the game tests your vocabulary, this project will test your patience! That's not to say it's difficult - it just involves a LOT of steps. But to give the ultimate gift to the Scrabble lover in your life, it's worth the effort!

FREE FILES!

To get you started, FREE cut files are available on our user forum, with pre-programmed toolpaths compatible with Vcarve v12, as well as SVG and DXF files for everything in the project, as well as vectors for the original game board.

Download the cut files here... https://forum.onefinitycnc.com/t/build-a-mega-fancy-scrabble-board/32793

This project started as a retirement gift, a custom Scrabble board nice enough to leave out in the house as a furniture piece. It’s sized for regulation Scrabble tiles but adds personalised name tiles, a score key, the Scrabble logo, and built-in tile slots, all machined on a Onefinity CNC.

This isn’t a difficult project in the traditional sense, but it is tedious. There are a lot of steps, a lot of tool changes, and a lot of waiting for glue and epoxy to cure. If you’re willing to invest the time, the result is absolutely worth it.

Design and Planning

The design starts with a free vector file of a standard Scrabble board, broken out into individual components.The tile cavities were scaled up slightly,  it’s better for them to be a touch oversized than undersized.

A bounding box was added around the tile grid to define the overall board shape and leave room for personalisation, a score key, and the Scrabble logo.

Rather than using separate tile racks, slots were routed directly into the game board. And instead of simple epoxy fills for the coloured bonus squares, contrasting wood species were used as inlays for a more refined look.

Wood Species

Four species were pulled from the scrap pile to represent the four scoring variations on a Scrabble board:

• Walnut – 16 plugs needed

• Rosewood – 8 plugs needed

• Osage – 24 plugs needed

• Purple Heart – 12 plugs needed

The Base and Top Piece

The board is built in two layers. The base is solid hard maple, flattened and planed to uniform thickness, glued up to just over 20″ × 20″. 

The wood inlays go into the base at a depth of 1/4″, so the base needs to be at least 1/2″ thick.

A thinner piece of maple forms the top layer. This piece has all the tile cavities cut out of it, creating the recesses for tiles to sit in while still revealing the wood inlays in the base underneath. 

Once the top is glued to the base, additional wood inlays, epoxy fills, and tile slots are machined into the top surface. The entire assembly is then cut to its final 20″ × 20″ dimension.

Setting Up in VCarve

The project dimensions were set to 21″ × 21″ (oversized, to be trimmed later) with a material thickness of 5/8″. 

The first tool path is a flattening pass over the base to ensure the surface is perfectly parallel with the Z-axis – absolutely critical when doing inlays, since any variation in thickness will affect the fit.

Inlay Pockets and Plugs

The tile cavity vectors were imported and centred on the model, then used as a reference for positioning the inlay pockets. 

The inlay pockets were offset outward by 0.03″ so that they’re slightly larger than the tile cavities. This way, if the top piece ends up slightly misaligned when glued down, the inlays still cover the edges cleanly.

VCarve 12’s revamped inlay tool path makes this process straightforward. It generates mirrored plug vectors on a separate sheet automatically. 

Since four different wood species are spread across the board, the plug vectors were reorganised into rectangular boundaries matching each piece of scrap wood, then recalculated.

Inlay Settings

• Pocket depth: 0.25″

• Glue gap: 0.01″

• Surface gap: 0.03″

Leaving a slightly larger surface gap helps prevent tapered plugs from bottoming out before the top shoulders seat properly in the pocket. 

It also leaves room to trim the waste material above the plugs before running a full flattening pass.

Top Piece Tile Cavities

The original (non-offset) tile vectors were selected and cut as an inside profile tool path using a 1/8″ spiral bit at 20,000 RPM and 150 inches per minute, to a depth of 0.125″ in two passes.

Get the top piece down to its final thickness before cutting the tile cavities. 

The thin bridges between squares are fragile, and flattening after cutting risks breaking them. Plane first, then cut.

Top Piece Inlays and Epoxy

The top piece gets four more wood inlays (one per scoring colour) for the point value guide, plus epoxy inlays for the personalised name tiles and the Scrabble logo. 

The name tiles are a two-part epoxy process: white epoxy is poured first to fill the tile shapes, then a second pass carves out the letters and numbers, which are filled with black epoxy.

The Scrabble logo pockets are cut at the same time as the name tile pockets since they use the same 60° V-bit. 

VCarve will generate plug vectors for these pockets automatically, but since they’re being filled with epoxy instead of wood, those plug vectors can simply be ignored.

Tile Slots

The tile holder slots are simple lines spaced apart to achieve the correct width, cut as a profile tool path on the vectors using a 1/8″ spiral bit.

Lesson learned: Make sure you have the actual tiles in hand before finalising slot width. If the slots are too wide, the tiles will fall flat instead of leaning back at a nice angle.

Final Profile Cut

The last tool path cuts both the base and top assembly to its final 20″ × 20″ dimension, cutting outside a square vector with a 1/4″ spiral bit.

Machining: Order of Operations

With all the tool paths saved and transferred to a thumb drive, here’s the full machining sequence:

Phase 1 – The Base

1. Secure the maple base to the waste board. Probe X, Y, and Z.

2. Flatten the surface with a large flattening bit.

3. Switch to a 60° V-bit, probe Z, and run the inlay pocket tool path.

4. Cut plugs from each wood species (re-probe as needed for each new workpiece).

5. Separate plugs on a band saw (or cut them out on the machine).

6. Glue plugs into the base and let dry.

7. Put the base back on the machine. Use a 1/4″ spiral bit to trim plugs down close to the surface, then flatten the entire piece.

Phase 2 – The Top Piece

8. Secure the maple top piece. Probe and flatten.

9. Run the profile tool path to cut out all the tile cavities.

10. Glue the top piece onto the base, ensuring the inlays are fully covered by the top piece edges.

Phase 3 – Top Surface Work

11. Put the assembly back on the machine. Using a 60° V-bit, cut the inlay pockets for the point value guide, name tiles, and Scrabble logo.

12. Glue in the four wood plugs for the point value squares.

13. Pour white epoxy into the name tile pockets. Let cure.

14. Run the black epoxy tool path (60° V-bit) to carve the letters, numbers, point indicators, and logo.

15. Pour black epoxy into those cavities. Let cure.

16. Switch to a 1/8″ spiral bit and cut the tile holder slots.

17. Run a final flattening pass to clean up excess epoxy and level the surface.

18. Cut the assembly to its final 20″ × 20″ dimension with a 1/4″ spiral bit.

Finishing and Final Touches

For the edge treatment, thick mitered rosewood banding was glued around the outside. This covers the glue line where the top meets the base and gives the board a polished, framed appearance. 

The miters were cut on a table saw: cut four pieces slightly longer than each side, bevel one edge at 45°, fit one corner tight, mark the opposite end, then carefully cut the remaining miters.

Use an oil-based finish rather than a wax. With all the tile cavities and recesses, a thicker finish like wax can collect in corners and harden into visible clumps. 

Oil penetrates the wood and soaks in evenly with nothing left to clean up.Finally, adhesive-backed felt pads on each corner elevate the board slightly off the table, which helps mitigate wood movement over time and keeps it sitting flat.

The end result, a custom, furniture-quality Scrabble board with real wood inlays and personalised details – is the kind of thing you just can’t buy off the shelf. Nothing good comes easy, and this build proves it.

The full cut files (including DXF and SVG vectors for the personalised name tiles) are available on the Onefinity forum, so you can swap in your own letters and make one for yourself. 

Just be warned - clear your schedule.