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| The Wisden's Board, fully restored (other than the warping) |
Buying old Shove Ha'penny boards like the one shown here will often lead to a certain amount of careful restoration, which is of course part of the appeal. Usually this involves nothing more than a light rub down with wire wool to remove staining and smooth the surface, followed by a modest polish-up with something wax based. This Mahogany Wisden's board was bought online as part of a job lot, and coming as it did with a few unforeseen problems, needed a little more attention to bring it back to a playable condition.
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| Prior to restoration, showing the bracing baton fixed where it shouldn't be at the top end of the board. |
The first major issue with the board was a quite serious warp on the diagonal, such that it was on the verge of being unplayable. Straightening a piece of old Mahogany like this can be a difficult task. Once the fibres of the wood have expanded, usually due to exposure to damp, they can't be made to contract again so your only hope is to try and expand the fibres on the opposite side. After several attempts involving a good soak on one side and the application of weights, I managed to straighten the board to some degree, but it's never going to be an entirely flat Shove Ha'penny.
At some point, this board appears to have been modified, though for what purpose I don't know. The crescent of the stop bar, which contains the carved recesses for chalk and coins, would have originally been located flush with the end of the board. For reasons unknown this had been moved down by a couple of inches, and the wooden baton used to brace the board against the edge of a table had been removed from underneath and fixed in the gap which resulted.
Moving the stop crescent back to its original position would have left a number of unsightly holes at the top end of the playing surface, so I decided to leave it there, re-fit the bracing baton in its original position underneath the front of the board, and fabricate a new Cribbage style scoring board to fit in the gap at the top of the board. A score board like this wouldn't usually be needed for a game of Shove Ha'penny, but there are one or two scoring games which can be played on the board by numbering the beds from 1-9 with chalk.
In common with my other (flatter) Wisden's Shove Ha'penny, the playing surface has polished up to be exceptionally smooth, and the remaining warp doesn't seriously affect play.
4 comments:
Hi there
I have recently bought a Wisdens board whose base appears to have been made out of two pieces of wood, is this normal?
Hi, I've seen numerous examples made from two pieces or more. Many years ago I was taught by a woodwork teacher that when making something like this, it was best to saw the timber in half, turning one piece over before gluing back together. The thinking behind this is timber will often have a tendency to warp in one direction, so this helps to prevent warping as the pieces of wood are acting against each other. This works well until the timber shrinks a little with age, which can result in a gap appearing down the middle.
Thanks Mark
It appears that mine has shrunk it, as well as a gap the grooves no longer match up and one side is slightly higher than the other which unfortunately makes it unplayable. Do you have any suggestions on restoring it?
Sounds like the only option is to unscrew the end-stop and bar underneath so you can try and marry-up the two pieces, glue and clamp. They're often tongue and groove, so they'll either go together or not. Best of luck with that.
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