Super (sticky) Scrabble

Super Scrabble has been the source of great fun at our house for a couple of months now. Every Sunday we have a family get-together, and me and my mom and my two brothers play Scrabble. At first, this was the regulation Scrabble game (we had the deluxe version with the turntable), but when I saw Super Scrabble I had to give it a try. Super Scrabble has a larger board area (21 by 21, compared to the original 15 by 15), and contains some new squares - quadruple word, and quadruple letter spaces. 

The letter frequency has also changed -

• 4 "blank" tiles (scoring 0 points)
• 1 point: E (24), A (16), O (15), I (13), T (15), R (13), N (13), S (10), L (7), U (7)
• 2 points: D (8), G (5)
• 3 points: B (4), C (6), M (6), P (4)
• 4 points: F (4), H (5), V (3), W (4), Y (4)
• 5 points: K (2)
• 8 points: J (2), X (2)
• 10 points: Q (2), Z (2)

Super Sticky Scrabble: 

We missed the functionality of our deluxe edition, with the turntable and the grooved edges that kept letters from slipping around. Nothing like a brand new Scrabble board to have your letters sliding all over the place. After a few incidents where someone reached for the dictionary or letter bag and wound up displacing an entire row of words, I decided to research a solution.  3M makes a restickable glue stick (think Post-It note type adhesive) that I decided to test out. I bought it right at Staples for about $1.50. I rolled it on to a corner of the board, let it dry, and tested it with a letter. The letter stuck! It was easy to take off, and put back on again. Furthermore, the letter's back didn't get sticky at all. Success!

 I rolled it carefully over the whole board - I figured too much restickable glue would be a bad thing, and might damage the  board's surface (it's only made of cardboard, after all). I set it aside and let it dry overnight.  I then brought it out to play a test game - and it worked like magic. The letters could be placed down, taken off, restuck - and the board could be rotated from person to person without us losing any letter positioning in the process.  At the end of the game, we had to take the tiles up from the board manually (no tipping the board into the bag) so cleanup took a little longer, but it was worth it. All letters were non-sticky, and the surface of the board remained sticky and ready for another use. 

 Another possibility would be 3M spray mount. I haven't tried this one, but considering it alows for the same conditions (non permanent bonding, and repositioning) I imagine it would work the same. It might even be better, because of the spray aspect (less potential for damage to the board by rolling of the glue stick, more even application).