Making chessmen and chess boards

Discuss anything you like about chess related matters in this forum.
Post Reply
Anthony Appleyard
Posts: 43
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:18 am

Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by Anthony Appleyard » Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:12 pm

Is it allowed to discuss here about making chessmen and chess boards?

User avatar
JustinHorton
Posts: 10364
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Somewhere you're not

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Mar 13, 2020 5:51 pm

I should hope so, we might all of us need something to do
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

John Moore
Posts: 2226
Joined: Wed May 14, 2008 6:33 pm

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by John Moore » Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:54 pm

Tell us more, Anthony. I've got a bit of wood lying about after the recent storms.

User avatar
JustinHorton
Posts: 10364
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Somewhere you're not

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Mar 13, 2020 7:57 pm

Reminds me that I saw this plasticine board and pieces, with instructions, in a book in a school library last month

Image

Image
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

User avatar
JustinHorton
Posts: 10364
Joined: Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Somewhere you're not

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Mar 13, 2020 8:08 pm

I don't want to post the whole thing online (I wouldn't mind posting a couple more pages, but for some reason my favoured image-saving site is on the blink this evening and I've run out of patience) but if anybody is actually interested in, e.g., making this with their kids, I could send them the instructions and photos. (Or you could buy the book.)
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

Kevin Thurlow
Posts: 5820
Joined: Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:28 pm

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Fri Mar 13, 2020 9:21 pm

That does look like fun - but if you actually tried to play with it, I reckon the pawns would be very confusing.

Stewart Reuben
Posts: 4542
Joined: Tue Apr 03, 2007 11:04 pm
Location: writer

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sun Mar 15, 2020 12:35 am

Making chessmen and chess boards
Is that not sexist? Should the thread not be Making chess pieces and chess boards

User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by MJMcCready » Mon Mar 23, 2020 3:23 pm

I think this is the one to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtWwny8-yX4&t=8s

Anthony Appleyard
Posts: 43
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:18 am

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by Anthony Appleyard » Sun May 10, 2020 4:49 pm

Try walnut wood offcuts? :: heartwood for the black pieces, sapwood for the white pieces; for the white pieces use a varnish that does not darken the wood.

User avatar
MJMcCready
Posts: 3178
Joined: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:30 pm

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by MJMcCready » Mon May 11, 2020 5:28 am

But the real challenge is, even if you do make your own board and set, then decide to give a friend a game on it to see how it feels, what do you do then? You put all that time into those pieces but never really know what to do with them on the board you made also.

Anthony Appleyard
Posts: 43
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:18 am

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by Anthony Appleyard » Mon May 11, 2020 4:26 pm

I have an old wooden (largely lathe turned) chess set. The white pieces are some sort of pale hardwood, perhaps beech. (The black pieces are likely the same but heavily painted black.) The knights were made in two pieces, a turned base and a head cut from wood sheet, as anyone knew who had carried out the move "N(head)-c3 : N(base) stayed at b1". In most of the white pieces, the heart (the place in the middle of all the annual rings) ran up-and-down through the axis of the chess piece, as if it was lathe-turned from very thin branchwood. This would not work with walnut, which at its heart has a wide soft pith tunnel, and a strong tendency, as it dries out, to shrink much more in circumference than in radius, thus causing radial checking (USA) / starshakes (UK).

John McKenna

Re: Making chessmen and chess boards

Post by John McKenna » Mon May 11, 2020 11:58 pm

To add a literary skein to this simple homespun thread see -

https://text.npr.org/s.php?sId=821356298

Post Reply