First chess set project

Hello,

Recently, for a school project I've undertaken a huge project (much bigger than I thought it'd be!) to design and make my own chess set from scratch. I'm proud of what I've made so far but it still has a long way to go - especially on the knight...

This is my first real, independent woodworking project (I had never used a lathe before this) so take what I've made with a grain of salt as I'm still learning!

Hope you can see what I'm going for here (especially with the rook trying to revitalise some older sets with the collar under the battlements)

Anyway, tell me what you think and hope you enjoy what I've made!

Wow! Those are beautiful - congratulations, you should be proud!

Congratulations. Great work! Better than I could do.

• I really like seeing your working notes and diagrams.
• the queen is my fave piece.
• i like that you follow a hierarchy from the king down to the pawn.

How stable is the pawn?

Unfortunately not very stable. I'm considering getting some small weights to put in the base for when I make more because in a quick endgame they really wouldn't hold up well

The other pieces have weights in the bottom so feel nicely weighted (the king is still slightly top heavy though)

Very nice work. Something to be proud of!

Well done - an excellent and difficult assignment for a school project and perhaps you’re learning a woodworking skill that you’ll take with you through life’s journey. 👍

Many kudos to you @Puffin6 ! Well done and bravo. Learning the hand and tool skills at an early age is a tremendous adventure. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be dropping your name in a few years from now. We knew @Puffin6 back when…

Lessons learned? What's next? Any changes planned?

Other than changing the pawn's weighting, I think the bases need to be a bit more uniform although they're not terrible at the moment, they just need a bit of extra care with the next pieces that I make

There was also massive issue with the bishop's ring which could have possibly been prevented with a bit more time and care:

which meant that I needed to alter the design to have a smaller ring in order to remove the chipped wood. But I think it turned out pretty good in the end

HAHAHA!!! You're already making puns like a pro.

Really nice to see the bishop. What was your inspiration for the design (of all pieces)

@Puffin6, curious to know your choice of woods. Walnut and maple perhaps? Are you applying a finish or just a burnish? Good job on experimenting with the bishop design after the tear out. Learning to work with the wood is my challenge. Proud of your efforts! Also, many thanks for sharing your journey with us.

How long do you have? lol

This project involved over 300 designs (many of which hand drawn and others made online with pictures of my drawings) which I had to analyse (again, this sprouted from a school project)

Some of the main inspirations are quite antique sets for the rook and bishop designs (there was specifically one set by John Calvert that I took quite a few ideas from). With the bishop, I tried to modernise the design a bit using the Staunton style body to fit with the rest of the set but I kept the rook quite similar to the antique sets because I thought they were such brilliant designs.

Other way that I got inspiration for the set was through my local architecture because I saw a blog post on here saying that professional set makers do that. So I went out to the city I was born in as well as the city I go to school in and a local village that's significant to me to take photos of which eventually contributed to the designs (or at least retrospectively relate to them). But this has created the problem (?) of seeing chess pieces in plain sight virtually everywhere.(obviously a queen)

(pawn)

I can send through some more of my design work tomorrow but I may or may not have an assignment due in the morning that I need to work on...

Yep! They're walnut and maple.

Which seem to be pretty standard woods from what I've seen and are certainly cheaper than the ebony + box combo that I've also seen having been used.

The pieces are sanded down and then have sanding sealer plus a glossy lacquer applied

And you're welcome!

I've been doing this project for so long that it's really nice to show people - I'll continue updating this forum as I keep working on the project and I am happy to answer questions and receive advise!

Thank you for update. I really enjoy the pictures. Well done surveying your cities for design inspiration.

Hello again @Puffin6. Wondering how your project is coming along. Have you any updates to share with us?

Hello! It's been a long time!

I do have some updates but unfortunately it's been a while since I've gotten into the workshop as I've been very busy with school (part of which is running my own chess club, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know)

The progress I have made is on the knight and currently, it looks...interesting...one could say.
I'm not a massive fan of it (I think it's far too thin and the face currently looks like a duck's bill) - I will continue to make tweaks on it going forward (advice is much appreciated)

(I realised that I hadn't actually put my design for the knight so here you go (from this iteration, I removed the spiky ring near the base but it's the same other than that))
As well as this, I have had a think about the pawn and have come to the conclusion that I will have to redesign it because it's simply too unstable to the point that it would be far too impractical for even friendly games

I haven't given up on this project but it's looking likely that I won't be able to finish until next summer holidays as it is so time consuming!

@Puffin6 As I have said in other woodworking threads, I am always amazed at what you woodworkers can do. It must be so rewarding being able to take what you jotted down on paper and turn (pun intended) it into reality. Good job!