Re-Felting a Chess Set

I don’t know if mixing glues works, but it shouldn’t be needed. Last week, I used Aleene’s Quick Dry Tacky Glue to refelt carbolite (plastic) pieces, and it went perfectly.

A few times, the felt got too soaked with the glue, so some white could be seen on the bottom of the felt, in which case I threw the felt away and tried again. After a few felts, I got the process just right:

1. I would cover the whole bottom of the chess piece with glue and then stamp the bottom a few times on a piece of carton to remove excess glue.
2. I then applied the felt (cut a bit larger than the chess piece; actually, I cut it into square shapes), but I didn’t press too hard.
3. I would leave it for a minute to dry, and then press the chess piece on the table a few times. This way I could get a firm bond while assuring that the glue wouldn’t drip through the felt.
4. Then I would cut the felt to the exact shape of the chess piece.

Here is the result of the refelted king:

the result is very clean. is soaking not recommended for a good sticky bond? how is the bounce and spongyness on the board of the refelted king with the tacky glue?

Yeah I guess the glue needs to penetrate the felt a little bit, but it shouldn’t leak through to the other end, as you will get noticeable glue spots on the bottom, and it probably ruins the feel of the felt as well. That’s why stamping the piece on some glossy cardboard a few times helped, as there was still plenty of glue left on the piece to make the bond with the felt, but not enough for the felt to get soaked and leak through to the bottom.

The pieces glide over the board nicely; the felt is still soft and silky. In terms of sound absorption, the felt I used is quite thin, so sound absorption could be better. Most of the pieces sound nice, but the white king became the heaviest piece after adding more weight to it, so it’s louder than the other pieces. I filled the pieces with tungsten putty, increasing the weight of the white king from 18.73 g to 46.15 g. Not bad for plastic pieces!

I’m awaiting another order of tungsten putty now so that I can finish weighting and felting the pieces next week. Anyway, if you want more sound absorption, I guess I would go for 1.5 mm or thicker. The felt I used is 1.2 mm. For wooden pieces I would probably go thicker, but for plastic pieces I really like the felt I went with; I don’t want the felt to be thicker and thus more noticeable for these relatively small pieces.