Looks great! As for weighting, I honestly doubt it will reduce the value of a vintage set, and people may even pay more for it if they see ‘weighted’ in the description of a listed set. I know I would be more attracted to a set if it were weighted. Do you see yourself paying less for a vintage set because it was weighted? I can’t fathom the scenario, but maybe that’s just me.
If you ever do decide to weight a set, use a vise with a rubber grip to hold the chess piece in place, and use a Forstner drill bit and drill slowly. There should be no concern about pieces cracking if you use this method. The only thing you have to be careful about is not to drill too deep and break through the surface at the other end.
I’m in the process of weighting a Romanian set for my wife; she loves the set, but didn’t enjoy playing with it very much. She prefers weighted pieces anyway, but these Romanian sets also have a top-heavy design, which makes them quite unstable on the board. Below is my process.
On the left, you can see I used three different-sized Forstner bits, with each smaller one going deeper. Do start with the largest hole, because the Forstner bits need something to hold on to. If you drill out the center first, making the wider holes will be quite impossible.
The smallest hole is smaller than the central column, so as long as I drill straight, I can go really deep. But I stopped before reaching the halfway point, in part because this is a top-heavy design, so I wanted to put as much weight at the bottom. On the right side is another rook, where I hollowed out the base more after drilling the three holes. I used a Forstner bit at an angle to hollow it out. I later found that I could hollow out the base even more by using a dremel with a spherical carving bit (essentially a little sphere with spikes).
Below you can see the result of the four hollowed-out rooks.
As for weighting, I recommend using fine lead grain instead of lead balls. That way, you can pack more mass in a given space. Do wear a mask specifically for lead protection though. During the transfer process, some lead dust may lift in the air—some of which is so fine you may not even see it—and enter your lungs. This happened the first time I transferred lead grain I bought from the bag into a canister. I didn’t realize the lead would spread in the air, and I became quite dizzy. I have since used proper protection even when transferring small amounts of lead into chess pieces.
Anyway, once you’ve added the lead, lightly shake the chess piece and swirl it around a bit to let the grain settle as far down as possible. This not only ensures an optimal utilization of space (thus adding as much weight as possible), but it will also lock the lead in place so you don’t end up with little shakers.
If you work with lead, it’s important to seal it properly. I leave about 2 mm at the top, which I then fill with two-part epoxy. It’s denser than most wood types, so the 2 mm epoxy seal isn’t a great loss. Below are two kings with sealed bases.
Once the epoxy has cured (give it 24 hours), I sand it down with a dremel and a sanding bit to get an even surface. I place the piece upright to check if the surface is indeed flat and level. If the piece is a bit unstable, I sand away more from the center. If the piece leans a bit, I sand the side it leans away from.
And below are two photos of the result. The weight of the rooks I managed to bring from around 12 g to around 20 g, and the kings from 15 and 16 g to 27 and 27.6 g.
I’ve been told that some of these sets were factory-weighted, but about 2 g lighter than my pieces. I was actually hoping to make the rooks 22 g, but I found that 20 g is more than enough to keep them stable on the board, even with their top-heavy design. So I’m satisfied. I also have tungsten grain, which I could have used if I really needed heavier pieces, but it’s so expensive that I only use it for really small chess pieces where you can’t put much weight in the bases in the first place.
I’m still in the process of weighting the set. I finished the knights about a week ago, and I guess I’ve become more skilled at hollowing out the bases (and perhaps more confident in going deeper without reaching the surface), as I increased their weight from around 10 g to 20–22 g.
The red felt gives the pieces a nice touch.