@hughie has a recent thread ("Chess set complete") showing a unique set he made where uniformity of profiles was not a priority, and I liked it, outside the norm for sure, but the purpose of each piece was still understood.
Back around 1998 I made a chess set inspired from a Rude Olsonik article in the former American Woodworker magazine (since bought out by Popular Woodworking). The issue was from Oct 1990, here is a link to buy the back issue from Pop Woodworking-
store.popularwoodworking.com
Anyway, that project was pre-digital camera, and I don't know where I have photos of any kind. I spent 4 months making that set, and a combo chess board/storage box for it. I gave it away to a deserving person, and that's the last I've seen of it.
During the covid shut down I started another set from the same patterns, using wenge and cherry for the pieces. I bought the 1.5" thick wenge from Gilmer Hardwoods in Portland, OR. After 8 or 9 pawns I petered out and up onto a shelf the whole thing went. But I thought I'd post this in case anyone is looking for inspiration. (The internet was too young back then to be useful, but I bet there is no shortage of other's work to pattern after nowadays.)
In his article, Rude shows how to grind a bunch of custom steel cutters/scrapers to form all the profiles! It's aimed at production work. Pfft, I'm a woodturner- a spindle gouge, skew, and parting tool were about all I needed to make the pieces.
Back then I epoxied #7(?) lead bird shot into the base of each piece to keep them bottom heavy and lessen accidental tip-overs. What a pain. This time I've epoxied in 3/8" x 1" bolts to do the same job. Much better idea!
And like hughie, I'm not concerning myself with zero-tolerance variation between the pieces. That does not exist on a real battlefield, I'm not worrying about it on a chess board. (Maybe keeping that in mind will help me finish this set.) And I gave the king a different crown shape, something more robust than the spindly little thing that looks like it would break right off.
Here are a couple key pages of the article, and a couple photos of my work in [delayed] progress. For turning the off-center knight, I just grabbed the piece off-center in the chuck jaws to make that undercut of the horse head profile. Experiment on some scrap first to get an idea of the offset needed. If I had to guess, I think I cocked it maybe 1/4" or 3/8" off center (ha! the article says "about 5/16") using the tailstock center point as reference to measure off center. The article mentions using a leather pad on the bottoms of the finished pieces. I glued felt onto the set I made. Leather would be pretty classy.
I don't play chess, and I have no interest in learning. But if I finish this set, another deserving person will take ownership.
Back around 1998 I made a chess set inspired from a Rude Olsonik article in the former American Woodworker magazine (since bought out by Popular Woodworking). The issue was from Oct 1990, here is a link to buy the back issue from Pop Woodworking-
American Woodworker October 1990 Digital Edition
American Woodworker October 1990 Digital Edition
store.popularwoodworking.com
Anyway, that project was pre-digital camera, and I don't know where I have photos of any kind. I spent 4 months making that set, and a combo chess board/storage box for it. I gave it away to a deserving person, and that's the last I've seen of it.
During the covid shut down I started another set from the same patterns, using wenge and cherry for the pieces. I bought the 1.5" thick wenge from Gilmer Hardwoods in Portland, OR. After 8 or 9 pawns I petered out and up onto a shelf the whole thing went. But I thought I'd post this in case anyone is looking for inspiration. (The internet was too young back then to be useful, but I bet there is no shortage of other's work to pattern after nowadays.)
In his article, Rude shows how to grind a bunch of custom steel cutters/scrapers to form all the profiles! It's aimed at production work. Pfft, I'm a woodturner- a spindle gouge, skew, and parting tool were about all I needed to make the pieces.
Back then I epoxied #7(?) lead bird shot into the base of each piece to keep them bottom heavy and lessen accidental tip-overs. What a pain. This time I've epoxied in 3/8" x 1" bolts to do the same job. Much better idea!
And like hughie, I'm not concerning myself with zero-tolerance variation between the pieces. That does not exist on a real battlefield, I'm not worrying about it on a chess board. (Maybe keeping that in mind will help me finish this set.) And I gave the king a different crown shape, something more robust than the spindly little thing that looks like it would break right off.
Here are a couple key pages of the article, and a couple photos of my work in [delayed] progress. For turning the off-center knight, I just grabbed the piece off-center in the chuck jaws to make that undercut of the horse head profile. Experiment on some scrap first to get an idea of the offset needed. If I had to guess, I think I cocked it maybe 1/4" or 3/8" off center (ha! the article says "about 5/16") using the tailstock center point as reference to measure off center. The article mentions using a leather pad on the bottoms of the finished pieces. I glued felt onto the set I made. Leather would be pretty classy.
I don't play chess, and I have no interest in learning. But if I finish this set, another deserving person will take ownership.
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