Scrabble Giant Deluxe Edition replacement tile set

ClayJar · December 15, 2025, 4:07pm

Christmas is nearly upon us, and while talking to my parents, I asked whether there was anything they might want me to make for them this year. Usually the answer is an “Oh, anything! We like whatever you come up with!” so I was quite delighted when after just a moment’s thought, they actually had a request. You see, they have a Scrabble Giant Deluxe Edition set that they very much enjoy, but they’ve lost one of the letters and are currently using a standard-size letter as a poor substitute:

They asked if I could make a replacement letter. Well, sure, I can certainly make a replacement letter. Of course, mass-market Scrabble tiles are end grain*, and if I made a replacement, it would naturally be face grain. I also don’t have the letterforms used on the real game tiles, so barring a scan-and-trace, that would also be a mismatch. Of course, I’d naturally want to cut, engrave, and mark them with my lasers, which wouldn’t match the original printed tiles. (Competition tiles can’t be engraved, as cutthroat Scrabble players would certainly “read” them when drawing, but my parents would like the engraved look… also they’re currently using that tiny little D, so context, heh.)

So, first things first, I selected a nice 1/4" poplar board, as I can get that locally and it seemed an appropriate wood. (I also have hard maple, cherry, mahogany, and walnut heading my direction, but knowing my parents, they’d end up with poplar for the look and feel anyway, so poplar it is.) I drew up an array of tiles in Inkscape (31mm tall, 29.5mm wide, 3mm corner radius) and brought it into LightBurn. Two passes at 20mm/s and 60% power on my 100W CO2 laser (with a 4" focal-length lens) made quick work of turning the board into tile blanks. (One pass at those settings was almost enough, but two passes made a nice, clean medium-brown edge with no excessive charring.)

The 100W CO2 gantry laser is my usual selection for cutting, but my 30W CO2 galvo laser is wonderful for engraving, so my next step was to throw a thin piece of scrap plywood on the 100W CO2 and cut a tile-holder jig to use for repeatable placement on the galvo. I cut the tile hole to the same dimensions as the tile blanks, figuring I could rely on the kerf to give me the necessary clearance. I mounted it to the little X/Y table I use for precision placement on the galvo, and I was in business.

I used a two-step engrave-then-darken process on the tiles. For the finest detail, I threw my 110mm field lens on the CO2 galvo and got to work. The first sublayer is 5000mm/s, 100% of my 30W, frequency 100kHz, line interval 0.15mm, and 5 bidirectional passes rotating with an angle increment of 120°. That gives just a little depth, but it leaves the surface a bit light. The second sublayer follows with 2000mm/s, 10% of my 30W, frequency 20kHz, line interval 0.025mm, and 3 bidirectional passes rotating with an angle increment of 120°. That significantly darkens the engraving.

I had my tiles all sitting off the side of the workspace in one LightBurn file. I’d select the next one, move it to workspace center (to which I had my jig aligned), and run that tile the appropriate number of times. Lather, rinse, repeat until all 100 tiles were done. (For the two “blanks”, I added my maker’s mark. The reverse of all the tiles is blank.) I’m also including four completely blank tiles so they can sharpie a temporary tile if they lose one – wouldn’t want them having to use an unmatched tile while they wait for me to make and mail a replacement, after all.

Naturally, now that I had a full set of tiles, my mind immediately alerted me to the absolute necessity of sending them in a nice custom box. I mean, they’re a gift… and having a bespoke perfectly-sized storage box might help prevent future tile misplacements. I had the remnants of some 5mm plywood, so a quick trip to Boxes.py, followed by some tweaks of the inside wall connections in Inkscape, and I was in business. The 100W CO2 laser made quick work of the cutting, and my 23ga pin nailer was delightful as always in making the assembly permanent.

I then went back to the 30W CO2 galvo to throw some decoration on the box. I used my 210mm field lens so the workspace was large enough for the cover. Other than that, I used the exact same settings to do the two-step engrave-then-darken process as I used for the tiles. The tile outlines are one pass at 100mm/s, 20% of my 30W, and frequency 20kHz.

I engraved labels on all six faces of the box, adjusting the sizing as appropriate. Finally, I engraved my makers mark at 50mm diameter on the inside faces of the box top and bottom. And that’s about it for this one. It’s now all packed up and ready to send up to Wisconsin, where hopefully it will be a delightful upgrade.

*Trivia note: I believe the reason mass-market Scrabble tiles are end grain is simply production. It allows them to make “dowels” with the appropriate cross section and then slice them into vast numbers of tiles (like making branch cookies). This means the machinery only has to profile one dowel instead of many tiles, and since lumber is virtually unbounded in the tree’s vertical axis, it’s a very efficient way of producing vast numbers of tiles. Still, for a small-market custom set, I’m of the opinion that the aesthetics of face-grain tiles wins out.

ClayJar · December 25, 2025, 3:25pm

Well, USPS took 8 days out of the promised 4 (vs. the 1-3 days on the sign) to deliver the poplar tile set, but it got to my parents before Christmas. They were expecting one replacement letter, so they were quite surprised and delighted. They commented that they loved the bold letters on the tiles and that they made the original ones look sad and anemic, hehe. Naturally, we had to play a game to try out the new set, but there was the little issue of being 900 miles apart.

I’d given a bit of thought as to how to play a fair (enough) game of Scrabble with remote players, and I figured I’d come up with an idea that would work.

The host has the canonical letter bag from which all draws are made.
The host and each remote player have an additional full set of letters set out face up.
When a remote player needs to draw, the host draws and (without looking at the letters) shows the tiles to the camera and then discards them. (The remote player pulls the corresponding tiles from their set and racks them.)
When any player plays, the remote player(s) pull the played tiles from their local set and place them on their local board.
When a remote player plays, the host pulls the played tiles from their auxiliary set and places them on the board.

With nothing to lose, we tried it out. We successfully played a trial game, and other than a little glitch or two due mainly to the spare tiles in their new set being in the draw bag instead of reserved for future lost tile incidents, everything seemed to work just fine. (Mom didn’t understand the plan as described, but by a few turns in, it clicked and turned obvious.)

I could certainly have just set my tiles on the table, but hey, what fun would that be. So, I engraved a nice little letter board to organize them. It’s only sized for standard Scrabble tiles, as I don’t have a giant deluxe edition, but I thought it was a nice touch. Of course, then I needed to make a second so my wife will also be able to play. (If we shared one, it would telegraph our draws. Fortunately, I have four distinct sets of Scrabble tiles, so having our own sets is no problem.)

Of course, the fact that the host needs a second set of tiles for the setup to work meant that they were using their old set (with the one smaller tile) as the auxiliary set for my moves. That just seemed unfortunate, as even the standard large tiles look out of place with the nice new custom set. Only one thing to do, then. I made another set. Since the first set was a nice light poplar, I figured I’d make the second set out of mahogany so they are easy to sort back out after a game.

Now, I just have to send these off tomorrow and wait another week or so for them to make it up to Wisconsin, but then we’ll be able to play Scrabble at a distance without any of those pesky stock tiles or the one little letter. (It totally doesn’t matter at all to my parents, but using their old letters on the same board as the new set was making the artistic section of my brain hurt.) On the other hand, I don’t think they get another display box with this set.