Very beautiful. I hope you have pieces worthy of such a board. As you are my neighbor, you should invite me over and I will bring some brandy and we can properly christen your new board.
Joey, I'd love to arrange a time to play on the new board. However, I have to admit knowing even less about brandy than I do about chess
. For now, I'll be using these pieces on the board. . .
But I might look to order a set of HOS Collectors . . .
Thanks,
Ted
nice. where to buy and how much did you pay?
Customchess.com - and I'd rather not talk cost out of respect for the seller.
-Ted
I'm a wine and scotch guy myself . . .
I'll be in touch.
-Ted
A stunning board! Where are you getting that?
I'll trade you my $19.95 Wal-Mart set for it. :)
Thanks for the compliments guys.
I ordered the board from customchess.com, it was a really cool/fun process/experience.
I should have it on Monday and I'll post some more pics along with a review and some details on the woods I chose.
-Ted
Hi Ted,
The board looks beautiful and the pieces look beautiful but I worry that those pieces are going to be slightly too large for that board.
Are you familiar with the "75% rule?"
Check out the following link, which gives examples of boards that don't fit the pieces (and vice versa.):
http://www.chessusa.com/guidelineb.html
I see far too many sets that look like Figure 1-5. (labeled "a crowded chessboard")
Another excellent rule is that four pawns should be able to just about fit on a single square.
I was recently given a beautiful set of wooden pieces, with a 4 1/4" inch tall king. Alas, NONE of my many boards, both wood and vinyl, were "large enough" to accomodate the pieces. Oh, they fit on the squares alright, but the board and pieces together just looked way too crowded, similar to Figure 1-5. The pieces were just too tall and too large for the squares. I ended up buying a board a large board, with 2 1/2" inch squares, just for these new pieces and I'm glad I did so.
One of my favorite chess comic strips is the last strip on this page:
http://www.edcollins.com/chess/chess-comics-9.htm
It's an exageration of how chess pieces are sometime way too tall in relationship to the board.
Hi Ted,
The board looks beautiful and the pieces look beautiful but I worry that those pieces are going to be slightly too large for that board.
Are you familiar with the "75% rule?"
Check out the following link, which gives examples of boards that don't fit the pieces (and vice versa.):
http://www.chessusa.com/guidelineb.html
I see far too many sets that look like Figure 1-5. (labeled "a crowded chessboard")
Another excellent rule is that four pawns should be able to just about fit on a single square.
I was recently given a beautiful set of wooden pieces, with a 4 1/4" inch tall king. Alas, NONE of my many boards, both wood and vinyl, were "large enough" to accomodate the pieces. Oh, they fit on the squares alright, but the board and pieces together just looked way too crowded, similar to Figure 1-5. The pieces were just too tall and too large for the squares. I ended up buying a board a large board, with 2 1/2" inch squares, just for these new pieces and I'm glad I did so.
One of my favorite chess comic strips is the last strip on this page:
http://www.edcollins.com/chess/chess-comics-9.htm
It's an exageration of how chess pieces are sometime way too tall in relationship to the board.
Thanks for the informative post. The squares are either 2 1/4 or 2 1/2 inches wide, i don't remember exactly which we decided on. I discussed the piece size and the square size at length with the guy who built the board. He presented that 75% rule to me along the way. While pieces that are too big for the squares certainly isn't a good thing, i tend to prefer a tighter fit, compared to the pieces "swimming" on the squares. I'll take some pics of the pieces on the board when I get it home. I'm hoping they fit well! And based on my conversations with the gentleman who built the board, I'm confident that they will.
Thanks again!
Ted
Hey, my friend, where are your pics of the board? I have just discovered customchess.com and have wondered if it is a good company. Would appreciate some feedback. thanks.
Hey, my friend, where are your pics of the board? I have just discovered customchess.com and have wondered if it is a good company. Would appreciate some feedback. thanks.
If you are thinking of buying a board from customchess.com, my advice would be to not pay upfront. I did and I've been waiting for five and a half months now and I still don't have any committed date when my board will be ready... The guy running the site said it "should" be ready end of this month - I hope that's true. If you look at the site, the gallery hasn't been updated with any newly completed board in almost 4 months...
thanks. appreciate the advice. maybe I won't order from there.
This what Custom Chess said on their FAQ's page:
Lead Time:
All custom orders are hand built to order from scratch and so require time to complete. Also, because of the large variety of unique woods species available, we do not stock a large inventory of wood and in most cases have to order the specific wood necessary to complete the specific project. Also, orders are completed in the order they are placed, usually one at a time, so lead times will vary depending on the number and complexity of outstanding orders. Currently, the lead time is approximately 12 weeks for new chess boards orders. Very rarely we have pre-built, fully completed boards and other projects available. When available, the will be posted on the home page and in the Store. If you want to be contacted when new pre-built projects become available, please sign up for our newsletter.
Order Status:
For an updates regarding your order's progress, please contact us via e-mail. Updates will usually be limited to information regarding the remaining time left before the project is completed and whether the project is on schedule. We generally do not provide a "percentage completed" of the physical item. Please note that a given lead time for a project is usually NOT the same as the amount of time it will take to physically build the project, but rather it is the amount of time before a project CAN BE completed and shipped out. For example, if it is expected to take 12 weeks to complete a project, usually more than half of that time is used for ordering and waiting for materials to arrive and completing other projects that came before it. In most cases the physical construction of a project can not be started for many weeks after the order is placed.
And, again, you noted that the site hasn't been updated in about 4 months. So.....
Beautiful board. It looks like Elm root for the dark squares. Curly maple maybe for the light squares. You should check the Wellington chess set out at Thechessstore.com. The Alexander one is nice as well, but more expensive. They are the best looking pieces for the money imo (I got the Wellington, Paduok, and Ebony, with a board Paduok, and curly maple, and I am very happy with the purchase, I also own an old HOS 4.5 club set, that is really nice (leather bases), but the Wellington, is nicer). They aren't cheap though. The Andulusian is close to what the Wellington looks like, plus comes with a casket for the pieces, but it is about $400 more, you would need to do a web search to find it.
If you guys play some games on the board, notate and post them please.
Good luck.
According to what I can find out, there is less than five employees to the company:
http://www.gcoupon.com/view/internet/188904/www.customchess.com
And I do not like to order anything from the internet unless I can pay by check after I receive my order. According to the website, I can do this. So...I will think about what I'm going to do.
(...)
And, again, you noted that the site hasn't been updated in about 4 months. So.....
I'll post an update if I do get my board end of this month. The guy was saying he was running behind on projects and trying to catch up, so maybe this is an aberration and I just got unlucky. I hope so, because the boards he builds are beautiful and reasonable priced, if his gallery is to be believed.
According to what I can find out, there is less than five employees to the company:
http://www.gcoupon.com/view/internet/188904/www.customchess.com
it's just one guy
Hi,
My experience with Mike is he's honest...I wrote Mike a letter expressing how much I liked his work and asked if he had any boards sitting around...He did have one with a slight ding on the bottom edge and a hairline cracked square that's almost invisible. After paying the board arrived in about two weeks, nicely packed and it's the most beautiful chess board I could ever desire.
This man is making possibly the best chess boards in the world...It's worth the wait.
Regards,
Sean
I said earlier I'd post an update to confirm whether or not I got my board. Well, Mike finally came through - he sent me a pic from his workshop showing the board and confirmed that he will ship it this week. It took well over 6 months, but by the looks of it, it was worth the wait.
Mike certainly builds quality boards, best I've seen anywhere. However, he seems over-committed and has trouble giving realistic estimates. So I'd say if you need a board built by a certain date, proceed with caution, but if you're flexible, then customchess.com would be an excellent choice. Mike has been great to deal with overall, and I'm asking him to build me a second board...
Here are a few pics of a new custom board being shipped to me. I'll post more pics and a more detailed review once I have the board at home.
