Chess pieces advice?

[M_Chavez]

Howdy folks.

I've wanted to turn a chess set for quite a while, but never had a reason to do it, as I don't play chess. Recently my daughter got into it and I figured I'll turn a nice tournament-size set out of olive and bubinga. Perhaps make a good board to match it, if the pieces come out well.

Would you have any advice on the best way to mount the blanks, especially considering the need to drill out the bottom of the pieces to add weights? Perhaps, any good howtos online?
Also, any information on carving the knights would be greatly appreciated, as I have never done any carving.

My skills are very basic when it comes to turning and I only have a basic record spindle lathe - should be enough to turn the pieces though.

Thank you.

 

[Tris]

Not something I have tried but I do recall Mike Darlow writing extensively on the subject in the woodturning magazine a couple of years back. Think he may have written a book too with design ideas and instructions.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Something I learned many moons ago - make the set from the softer of the two woods first, otherwise you can easily make that set smaller as the soft wood is easier to turn away and abrade. It's easier to match hard to soft than soft to hard.

 

[TheTiddles]

Use a threaded arbour (sometimes sold as a bottle stopper arbour) then you use a threaded stud with a machine screw thread one end and a wood thread the other, then you can screw the blanks on and off, they remain concentric and you have a pilot hole for later, also good when finishing too
Aidan

 

[M_Chavez]

Thank you for the advice.
There are some good looking (and intuitive) historical 20th century soviet sets that are reasonably easy to turn, so I'll start with one of them.

 

[gregmcateer]

Mike Darlow is undoubtedly THE knowledge on the subject.
His writing is sometimes a bit' strict', but I recommend his book for detail, design and all the techniques.
I just need to get better at turning to give it a go!

 

[Jonzjob]

I have made and sold 3 Staunton sets. They, in my opinion, are traditional and the nicest style as I can't go with all of the fancy stuff.

The most surprising thing for me was that the most difficult part was turning the pawns. The first is dead easy then the other 15 have to be the same! Or as near as damm it.

I cut the square blanks to just over size. Then turned and finished the base and drilled the hole for the lead ballast. Then reversed it in the chuck and turned the top to the required shape for the piece, except for the knight. I cut the rough shape for the knight on my band saw, but a coping saw will do just as well. Just a little more elbow grease.

After that it's just a case of cutting the detail on the tops with a small round file or saw for what ever shape. One word of warning though and that's to be VERY careful finishing the cross on the kings.

The base is finished with sticky backed felt stuff.

The set below is holly and black walnut. It was done 20 or so years back and the bloke who it was made for was quite happy to part with about £120 complete with the band saw box. That was done in mahogany and his initials pyrographed on the top.

I also tried my hand at the board, also in holly/black walnut. The idea there was to make a block 2 X 2, like a Batternburg cake, then slice it into tiles on my band saw and glue the tiles onto a good quality Russian beech ply board. All was really good until a few days later when the board warped! So I removed the tiles (good game, good game ) and put them onto an MDF board. Same result after a few daze! So the board was chucked into a corner followed by several "GOLLY GOSHes" and forgotten about for a few years. Next time a looked at it it was totally flat and still is. So if you plan to make one foe someone just give yourself a LOT of time The board above is just a cheapo thing we had from another life somewhere.

 

[M_Chavez]

Thanks folks.

Found a good chessmen chuck here:
https://www.mikepeacewoodturning.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Chess-Set-AW-Feb-2020-rev.pdf
Will make it today - just need to clean the dust off the lathe - the only reason I have it is because a neighbour was selling it cheap and I mainly used it to turn custom handles for my Ashley Iles and Stormont chisels.

Not in any hurry, so will take my time making these.

I was wondering about the difference between end grain boards vs flat sawn boards - perhaps end grain won't move as much? Also using PU glue will probably move less than if I use water-based Titebond... I'll make the set first and if it's a success, I'll make a board to match.

That's a very nice Staunton - what weights did you use for each piece?

 

[IanA]

Hello - I've made several chess sets based using the Staunton pattern and found once I'd sorted out how to make each piece it was surprisingly straight forward. As a 'non-carver' the knight seemed to pose the biggest challenge. An early decision was to 'modernise' the knight by avoiding carving and make a smoothed figure using the lathe, bandsaw and a Screwfix bobbin sander in a pillar drill. The knight can be clearly seen in the photo in this set which was made from lilac wood. Several people have now actually let me know the knight is their favourite piece! The weights I make by drilling multiple holes in a piece of scrap wood then pouring in molten lead. The wood is then removed, the lead stalks are snipped off and epoxied into a hole in the base of each piece. Cutting a crisp slot in the Bishop could be tricky but I cut this by taking the square wood blank and cutting half way through on the table saw set at 30 degrees. I did post in a reply to the posting 'Chess (&set)', a list of the relative heights for each piece if that would be of any help. Cheers IanA

 

[Jonzjob]

That's a very pleasing set Ian and I too like the knight! There's a lovely finish on them and the grain is beautiful.

My board was done with the end grain showing. I also decided to do a band saw box games box. Chess, backgammon and draughts. Same idea for the board on the outside, holly and black walnut and that turned out fine. One of these bright fine daze I wil get to finishing it?

 

[Richard_C]

I often think of making a set, but have a very nice 50 year old resin cast Lewis set so never quite get started. This thread has put me back on track.

I do wonder about making all 8 pawns of each colour in one go and parting them off, that way they should be consistent. Assuming stick on felt bases, the weights could just be ordinary nuts, 8mm or similar.

IanA's set looks spot on, close enough to Staunton not to confuse players but with a style of its own. The rooks in my Lewis set are unlike any other, not great for beginners. Might get started when the garage/workshop warms up a bit.

If you have Netflix, Queens Gambit is a good short series. So popular that chess set vendors had bumper sales and many are out of stock.

 

[M_Chavez]

Stauntons are nice sets, but there are so many exceptional ones available commercially, that I want to do something different, but still playable, especially for a child. The Lewis set is great, especially the chap who's biting his shield, but won't work for a child learning how to play.

This is the mid 20th century soviet set I have in mind for the first attempt.

Easy to turn, easy to distinguish the pieces and similar sets must have been used by most of the 20th century world champions, so it's got to be good for playing.
I, myself, have always been a Go and Poker man, so would pick black and white stones or a deck of cards over the chessmen every time.

I will borrow a better-looking rook from a different soviet set and might have to re-think the knight if my carving skills let me down.

Just tried turning a bishop from some scrap bubinga - made it almost to the end and when I was just about to congratulate myself on my turning skills, I got a catch and the whole thing exploded.

 

[M_Chavez]

PS I read that a triple-weighted king should be about 70g (!).
Solid bubinga will only be about 20g, so I'll need to find a way to add 50g of weight. Round mild steel bar (20mm in diameter, 14mm high) is about 35g and I have no idea where to get the remaining 15g without making moulds and melting some lead. Packing small lead shot won't be any better than a solid steel plug.
Perhaps, a hole bored through the middle of the shaft and a smaller steel rod will add a few more g.

 

[M_Chavez]

What finish would you recommend by the way? I've used tung oil in the past, but it seems to fade with time and needs to be re-applied now and again.
Shellac perhaps? If it gets rubbed off, at least that will be from plenty of playing rather than just fading with time.

 

[IanA]

I understand traditionally pieces were burnished in the lathe then left as bare wood. The set in the photo was sanded down to 1200 grade sandpaper and the burnishing finished off with a paper towel. I used Liberon finishing oil on this set but it hadn't been used when the picture was taken. Consequently I'm not sure if it would last all that long but it could be reapplied. My suspicion is that leaving the wood only burnished with or without a sanding sealer may be the best options for a set which is going to be heavily used. There must be a multitude of options for finishing, even including painting, which would be interesting to hear about. Your tung oil finish does look good and maybe its just one of those things that chess sets need regular maintenance. Cheers IanA

 

[johnny]

the French Regency set is quite attractive and relatively easy to carve I should have thought.
I haven't played chess for decades but was once a club player. It isn't necessary to lead load or weight pieces in order to play with them although it does give the pieces a nice hefty feel .

 

[J-G]

PS I read that a triple-weighted king should be about 70g (!).
Solid bubinga will only be about 20g, so I'll need to find a way to add 50g of weight. Round mild steel bar (20mm in diameter, 14mm high) is about 35g and I have no idea where to get the remaining 15g without making moulds and melting some lead. Packing small lead shot won't be any better than a solid steel plug.
Perhaps, a hole bored through the middle of the shaft and a smaller steel rod will add a few more g.

I suspect that a better solution would be to add a conic frustum to the top of the cylinder of mild steel. The extra 15g can easily be achieved in a number of ways ....

In the first example I've cut your 14mm to 10mm and shown what it would need to make up the 50g. Likewise, the second drawing shows that keeping the 14mm height you only need to add 10mm reducing the dia to 12mm.

I have to assume that if you have the means to make a mild steel billet you can also turn a taper on a slightly longer length.

There are many other possible geometries that could also be used though.

 

[M_Chavez]

Here we go - I've turned something other than a chisel handle!

Second attempt at turning a piece out of scrap - this time it's the king without the "crown" bit. I'll need to check that I can accurately drill the head out on the lathe.
30g, which puts me in the right ballpark if using the steel plugs.

j-g it will, unfortunately, be a caveman set-up. Hacksaw, file and a 20mm round rod. I'll probably lose a stone by the time I've made 34 plugs.

 

[Nelly111s]

For finish, especially for olive, I'd either use melamine lacquer or Osmo extra thin (1101) wood wax oil, depending on what you're trying to achieve (i.e. shine or protection)

 

[M_Chavez]

Howdy folks.

A couple questions.

1) I've turned a couple bowls out of olive in the past and I would just leave the new bowl in the workshop for a week or two before finishing it. I read that people do all sorts of tricks with part-seasoned olive - leaving in a bag with its own shavings, soaking in denatured alcohol, etc. Is there a need for all this, or can I just leave the pieces to dry for a week or two in the house before sanding and finishing?

2) Having turned sample pieces out of olive and bibunga, I've decided to go for more contrast and replaced bubinga with black chakate (looks like a black relative of bubinga and ovangkol). I now cannot see my decorative burn lines against the black background (see the bubinga photo in the post above). Is there a good way to add a light-coloured highlight to a turned piece? I have some silver wire somewhere in the workshop but no idea how to use it.