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Notes -
I'd expect a lot of that chessboard depends on how heavily you're committed to the bit. If it just needs to look right from the top but you want the grain patterns to look intact, that's a great place to rent some time on a cnc to make an inlay or even just use a bunch of veneer or burl and a sharp exacto knife. Would still require a lot of chisel or marking knife work to get those precise corner angles, but it'd save you a ton of material and a lot of really finicky jigsaw work or sanding.
Every time I see someone bust out a CNC machine, I get sad. I can certainly see their utility if it's your business. Not using one basically seems like you are leaving money/productivity on the table. But currently I'm enamored with the craftsmanship of woodworking. Getting my tools perfectly square and flat. Really nailing some perfect miter joints. Things like that.
That's fair; there's certainly a lot more romance and skill to hand tools or conventional power tools, and seeing a full CNC machine used for glorified bowl or crosscut work gets me a little disappointed myself. And it's definitely the sort of tradework that you have to love the process of doing it to really get the most out of a piece, and it's hard to do that when it's all gcode.
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