Maple and Walnut are pretty traditional but you can use any contrasting woods. You need eight strips of wood, four of each color. They all need to be same width and the Approximately the same length and preferably the same thickness. Glue the strips into a panel of alternating color, dark, light, dark, so on. Once the glue dries and the clamps come off you need to plane or sand the panel nice and flat. At that point you would most likely use a miter gauge on a table saw to cut that panel into eight strips that are the same width as the original strips. Then simply take every other strip and flip flop it end for end to form your chess board. Now glue these strips into a panel and there you have it. You can make a mitered frame if you like.
If you have access to a stationary power planer or a thickness sander you might want to size your chess board accordingly as this project will be made much easier with one of these stationary power tools.
