Cribbage Board Prototyping

I'm always looking for new items to add to the shelves at the gallery. Things that are unique(ish) and not too expensive.
Jim Jakosh made a cribbage board a while back that caught my attention.

Simple concept, a bunch of holes and some way to store a deck of cards and game pegs. I've never played but certainly can appreciate the fans wanting something cool to use.

So, off to the shop where the first thing I wanted to do was get a nice looking game surface.
Not wanting to "waste" a large figured chunk of wood on a prototype (and not having anything worthy), I decided on veneer.

Step One: Design
Make a design for the board track and create a program for the laser.
This also means I need a template to shape the piece for later.

Step Two: Game surface
Quite a few smaller steps involved to get to the next photo.

The laser was used to etch some borders and create a 1/16" "pit" for each of the almost 400 holes. Too much time to waste having the laser cut them through so I'll use a drill for that.

Step Three: The base

Seeing that I needed thickness for the game surface (1/4"), a deck of cards (3/4"). a slide out base (1/4"), associated lip and some wiggle room, 1-3/8" thick poplar was selected.

A template and pattern bit at the router table cut out the interior.

Added a channel for the sliding base to fit, entrance is tapered wider to make it all easier to get started.
I used a slot cutter router bit to get this done.

'nutter template to cut the slide and check the fit.

Step Four: Rabbet in the game surface

You can see that the peg holes have been drilled. The lasered "pits" acted as a center punch which
helped to keep the drill bit from wandering.

Rabbet slightly deeper that the surface so I can flush out the entire top at the drum sander.
A bit of a gap around the perimeter for more color fill.
Masking tape applied to keep the resin from staining the poplar and then deftly filled.

Drum sanding to level it all out.

Step Five: Everything else

Ok, the monkey in the room is that the poplar is not Scottish, so it looks like crap (old Monty Python reference)
I started to think of what to do on this step back when Mr. Rick was showing us some wood coloring ideas.

My problem is that any surface coloring done pre-assembled would get removed from the sanding to level the surface.
I could use stain or paint, opted for paint.

Masked the resin border, but that would never go perfectly and the finish kinda sucked.

Anyhoo,
the final product with a magnetic catch for the drawer:

So, what did I learn?

Don't do this!

Really. I checked prices for cribbage bards and they are surprisingly high, but this beast took a lot of time and to make it nice I'd need to use some thick 'n' nice hardwood which means budget busting. I could frame it out or laminate it but that is more time.

Need to go back and rethink, be back soon with version #2!