Making

A pile of ingredients in need of assembly

Published 30 May 2025

Putting it together

Tiles are double-sided and have a small piece of balsa between those sides to allow hanging on the grid. It was a steady process of drawing the correctly sized square on strips of balsa, cutting them and then slowly sorting pairs of tiles and gluing them together.

Unfortunately quite a few (about ten to twenty, in both sets) ended up being put together by me slightly incorrectly, essentially not totally square. This was because I had likely tried to make too many in one session, got a bit blasé and had got low on energy without really noticing (or admitting to) that myself and so mistakes were made!

A session of carefully ungluing those ones and remaking their balsa parts was undertaken. Twice, for two sets but with a bit more care as I didn’t fancy doing it again.

An image split in two with its left-side photo showing: a collection square plywood tiles with various letters of the alphabet, and values, laser-etched into to them; and its right-side photo showing a few of them laid out as they are in the process of two of the same letter being stuck together, with six of them spelling the word tea, twice. — A pile of laser-etched (and cut) letter titles before they were all steadily glued together with a little balsa between them.

The photo cropped on the left-side of this image shows cutting mat, ruler, sharp knife and part of a piece of, marked, plywood while its right-side photo shows some of four finished, but not painted, tile holders and on a reasonably clean and tidy section of the desk that was used for this project and was rarely seen! — A plywood sheet has been marked and is ready for cutting, though after a day or two does turn into four tile holders.

Putting together the tile holders was a little simpler, but a tad fiddly given I had to cut through plywood with my reasonably decent craft knife quite a few times to get the pieces I needed. Still, that was actually helpful as it made me take things more steadily, stay calm and meant no mistakes were made

Board painting

Wasn’t boring as their large, flat sides were conducive to broad brushstrokes and the not-worrying-too-much approach to detail, until the painting of the central and multiplier cells required a bit more coordination and a reasonably orderly process of right paint at right time; a few brushes were got through in the first coat of the colours as my cleaning of tools was a little remiss and what ones I had thought I’d suitably cleaned, on next day of use, were not.

A split image with its left-side photo, showing: part of two sides of two boards in their early painting stage, one mostly light green and the other mostly white and both have yet to receive their multiplier cell colours; the right-side photo shows a little of those boards’ other sides which are dark green and black with their triple and double letter, as well as double word multiplier cells, painted but needing work. — Various stages of the two, double-sided boards during their early painting.

The tray (that holds the game board which isn’t present in this photo) with some tile holders on it but all those parts are painted a neat and neutral light-grey which allows the other, in-game colours to stand out for contrast; and to the right-side of the image another photo shows an almost-painted-properly grid, which was a tad awkward and time-consuming to paint given its surface area, in the same grey. — Showing off a (mostly) finished light-grey paint job on the demonstration’s tray, tile holders and grid.

With all that detail work it was always good to know there were a few elements in my demonstration that only needed broad brushstrokes of grey paint. So, the tray, tile holders and the grid were comforting parts to fall back on knowing my full attention wasn’t necessarily critical to their successful completion. Well, until I painted things like my desk, but hey, at least the grey paint was acrylic not enamel.

Testing games

An arrangement of the first set of tiles was done, alongside an actual game using the unpainted elements.

All unpainted, 100 tiles randomly sit placed in a grid that sits above tray with board in an attempt at a game of Scrabble but really was an attempt for its maker to see how it all fitted together after quite a bit of time and have a little fun in making up words; however, ‘denture’, near the grid’s bottom-right, is an actual word, unlike pretty much all the others that a reader of this alternative text would likely struggle to read or, quite fairly, just ignore. — The inaugural game, well non-game, showing a completed set of 100, double-sided and glued tiles placed in a grid that itself is sat above the tray that holds a board.

Photo shows an unpainted but finished set of game elements that came together to show that, despite it all lacking decent and appropriate colours and contrast for the partially-sighted or braille for the blind, it worked; some of the words played are: wizened; scope; taxi; quart; vat; dopamine; and giddy. — One of the actual games that was played before painting began; despite its lack of decent contrast it did allow for real words to be made.

A lot of tiles

Painting the tiles, at first, seemed like it would be an insurmountable challenge given I had not properly considered its difficulties. However, with reasonably neat brushstrokes of paint around letters and numbers, balanced with the use of permanent ink to neaten their edges and a fair bit of patience, the sets became quite similar to their digital plans.

On the left-hand side of this image a photo shows one side of some of a set of 100 tiles that are being predominately painted white with their text having been inked in black; the right-hand side shows just a couple of the other 100 tiles – in similar setup of another spare grid – that have yellow lettering and, particularly, a letter W that is receiving some ink to finesse the letter’s edges, but the inker is currently busy taking the photo of said event. — Tiles are getting steadily inked and painted as they sit in one of two spare grids.

In this plan we show each side of the demonstration’s tile, how it fits into the grid and its sides; both have the letter M and its score of 3 typeset on them; one side of a tile is yellow, with black text with the other side black with yellow text; each tile, with its edge to hang on the grid and continue the colour rather than without an edge which makes a game look like a crossword puzzle, are 24 millimetres square and approximately seven millimetres deep. — A plan showing the details of my demonstration’s double-sided tile; braille is shown in green just for some context.

With all the elements finally put together a number of games using the finished pieces were had, of which some of them can be seen in the main article, but it wasn’t long before an update was underway . . .