Checkerboard

This is a Christmas gift for my father in law using hard maple and 40 year old cherry. I finished it with Waterlox glossy.

Find your contrasting wood, get it to 3/8” thick, and cut it into 2”x18” strips. If you want squares larger than 2” square, change the 18” to whatever you need to. DO NOT MOVE YOUR FENCE!!!!!
Take a 20” x 20” piece of mdf (1/2” thick) and glue the strips to the top. I found it easiest to do this 2 strips at a time, leave it set for an hour, and then add a couple more until you have something about 16” x 18”.
Use a pattern bit on the router lengthwise on the sides of the board to get it straight across. This helps against wood movement during glueing.
Take a panel cutting jig and trim off a perpendicular side to the one just routered wasting as little material as possible. This edge is now your TS fence guide. REMEMBER: DO NOT MOVE YOUR FENCE FROM THE 2” POSITION IT WAS SET AT. YOU WANT PERFECTLY SQUARE TILES OR ELSE IT IS GOING TO BE REALLY OFF.
Using the edge we just made on the TS, start cutting the 2”strips from the mdf/wood. The strips should come out as dark/light alternating strips.
Once you have the entire thing cut, take another piece of 1/2” x 17 x 17 mdf and start gluing the tile strips to them. Again, it is easier to glue a couple at a time because you not only need to glue the mdf to mdf, but you need to clamp horizontally to make sure that the strips bond to one another. Make sure to completely cover the inner-strip surfaces with glue so you get ample squeezeout when you are done. Also, make sure to line up the tiles so nothing gets offset. This is the final playing surface.
Wipe the excess glue off with a sponge and water, or paper towel and spit, whatever works for you.
After 24 hours, you can use a router with a flush cut or pattern bit to get fid of the excess mdf on the botton of the board.
If you are really good with a belt sander, now you can fix any alignment issues on the edges, just make sure to use fine grit.
Figure out how to enclose the board. I used hard maple inlaid with cherry. Both of those materials are what I used for the checker tiles themselves. I will yield to any other source you may have for learning inlay, because my inlay work is shotty. I should have made a jig instead of what I did.
I did a picture frame miter around the outside.
To attach the wood to the tile board structure, I used a biscuit joiner, 2 biscuits per side. It is easiest to use the already existing tile lines to determine the position of the biscuits.
Glue and clamp the mitered frame to the tile board, wait 24 hours for the glue to dry, and belt sand the top until it is nice and flat. You want to make sure that you do this before making any kind of routered edge on the top so as to keep it uniform.
I chamfered the edge on the top only. Of course this is completely up to your own preference.
Use a ROS sander to make everything nice and smooth.
Finish to your own taste, I used Waterlox glossy tongue oil.