Tips on antique chess set restoration

I recently purchased this vintage Brazilian chess set at a reasonable price. Overall, it's in good condition, but I’d like to restore it and need some suggestions.

1. The black queen and the white king have a small piece of their upper ring missing. What’s the best material or technique to restore it? Epoxy resin? Epoxy putty? And how should I mount it?

2. The black pieces are painted, so I’ll simply repaint them, but I’m not sure how to deal with the white pieces, which are varnished. Using a varnish remover gel requires mechanically scraping the varnish off afterward, but that’s tricky with circular pieces full of crevices and recesses. Could I remove the varnish using steel wool? Or should I leave the varnish as it is?

I don’t have tips on the collars themselves, but I have seen people repair with tinted wood putty or epoxy mixed with fine wood dust. IMO the original finish was very nicely done on this set and has good patina. I personally would leave as much of the original finish as-is and try to do minimally invasive local repair to the collars. If you want to clean it up, wipe it with a damp rag and cotton swab. A lot of vintage sets get ruined by mediocre refinishing jobs, sadly.

Fine saw dust & super glue . Then sand to right shape , hardest part is matching the white side or wood putty Then sand to right shape .

For reference, here is what PC-Lumber moldable epoxy putty looks like. On the left is a bishop I tried to alter but inadvertently oversanded to the point the finial broke off (I balanced it on top of the miter before taking the photo); on the right is the result after I glued the finial back on, added the epoxy, let it dry overnight to a rock-hard finish, and then sanded it into the shape I was initially going for.

The epoxy I used is tan, but it dried to this pale wood color—if you can call it a wood color at all. I stripped the paint off the piece before I did the repair. I’m not sure if I should color the epoxy to be consistent with the wood before I add a finish. If you’re skillful though, I imagine you could paint it to look the same as the rest of your piece. I would first paint the repaired area in the lightest color presented in your chess piece, and then do a few washes with a darker brown to emulate the patina, and finally add varnish or some wax to get the appropriate level of gloss.

This is me speaking as a layman who hasn’t done this type of thing before. I would ask a chess restorer like Alan Power for advice on the best way to go about it.

Oh by the way, it says the epoxy is moldable, but I would say it hardly is. I figured I would be able to sculpt it into exactly the shape I wanted, but the fourth bishop below is the one you see in the photo above. I’m pleased with the result, but it’s more a matter of roughly molding the epoxy onto the piece in a way that it sticks, and then sanding it into the right shape. Don’t think you can sculpt a perfect collar right away—at least not with the epoxy I used.

I’ve heard that professional repairs are often done with a piece of actual wood glued in place, and then you use some epoxy just to fill the gaps, before you sand it.

Super glue mixed with saw dust is an excelent idea, thank you. My concern remains the mounting, though. I don't think super glue alone will be able to hold it in place. Maybe I should make really thin holes with a drill to let the super glue penetrate and lock the glue+saw dust combination in place?

Imo, simply repainting the black pieces- if you mean the whole pieces- is not that simple because, for one thing, it is always an extra layer of paint, tending to blur lines and level relations. Then, you will still see where paint was missing before by the contours. And finally you will want to reach the quality of finish that you had before.

Okay, the queen in close-up (I do not mean the collar but the loss of lacquer) tells the story that this is an old chess set. But for it's age it looks fine! If you just mean to touch up little parts of wood shining through with a felt pen, that's comparatively harmless, but it is visible any time, and can distract the mind more than the minor traces playing history left on your pieces.

Your wonderful pieces are old. You can see in the light pieces that they will go on to lose gloss over time, but that they will always keep most of their gloss. Like the pieces may still go darker but they will never go dark. The best means to take care of the light specs are hot hands

Even though it is no longer here, you will see the finish as it was intended fully shine through. And you can always see the real workings of time. That's what you erase, even if you get the job done very well.

If you are going to make the effort, go the whole way and strip off the colour and refinish. Give it a full new life and let people in 50, 60 years return to the point you are now. 

I can't help you out, I only have experience with a few amateur efforts, where I weighed the risk and came out alright because self-made imperfections can really add something. So this is rather a warning not to take it too easy on such a nice one and to find quality ways like you are given here- or consider to let your set age in peace, with its own upsides.

The general rule when it comes to restoring antiques is simple: Don´t! I believe it applies even here and I´d keep that nice but somewhat war scarred set as is. There are lots of shiny new sets on offer.

If you want to try gluing a bit of wood on and then then shaping the bit of wood - this is something I have done myself. The pieces are probably boxwood, so use boxwood if you can. Shape the wood to get a good contact and then use medium viscosity superglue. Once that has cured, shape it with a dremel or something similar. For the black piece, you can use glossy rattlecan black car paint - but mask off the whole of the rest of the piece so you only spray the bit you've glued on.

Here are some pics from when I did a similar repair...

Glued a piece of boxwood on.

Then shaped to match.

Note that boxwood darkens with exposure to sunlight, so I didn't make any attempt to match the colour - it should blend in over time. I think I added a tiny bit of French Polish to this too.

Your set may well be finished in French Polish rather than varnish - so bear that in mind. If it was mine I would not be removing it, whatever it is.

Also, the repair I did is probably easier than the repair you have to do - I think you need a lathe to shape the wood for that.

Your line of thinking makes a lot of sense. I have considered the possibility of letting age and "battle scars" as they are. What concerns me, specially regarding the black pieces, is not so much the hit marks on the base of the pieces, but the fact that the paint is fading, particularly on the knights. But yes, a job poorly done may result in an even worse appearance! I think I'll repair the missing parts of the collars first, see the results and then decide the next steps.

lighthouse had suggested super glue with saw dust, and that's an approach that I had seen elsewhere, but yours I hadn't considered. The chunkier piece of wood is probably harder to sand off afterwards, but will result in a more homogeneus finish. Regarding the lath, what I do have is a Dremel and some sanding bits to help with the job.

I strongly suggest not to take any quickly rotating tools to your chess pieces

Just some small files and sandpaper will do the job just fine and more controlled, without the possibility of "big surprises".

LOL I was thinking about using the Dremel to sand off the extra chunks of wood that I'll glue to the collars in order to restore them. If I ever decide to remove the paint and varnish (but I don't think I'll be doing it), they'll be removed by sandpaper alone.

I tried sandpaper. It’s an awful amount of work! After sanding part of a piece, I used a fairly mild paint stripper. It saved me a lot of time! Below are the white knights of a Soviet set of mine. As you can see most of the finish is gone now.

Oh I wasn't talking about removing the paint/varnish with a dremel, I was talking about reducing the chunk size as well. Chess pieces are delicate and no matter which way the wood grain runs if you take a power tool to it you're testing its strength. Question is if you really wanna do that.

Personally I'd use some cheap needle files/limas de agulha to do the repair.

Yeah, fair point. What I actually did for the piece I posted photos of in post 9 and 10 was to use the dremel to sand off the excess and then finished with hand sanding - using tiny pieces of rolled up sand paper. The real danger with the dremel is accidental contact with the original piece (as opposed to the glued-on bit of wood) and scuffing the original finish. The job requires a steady hand, a very good light and a very strong pair of reading glasses.

Conpletely agree with @OutOfCheese, limes, sanding and avoid dremmel like tools (only for rough carving). In my case I would use paint stripper to remove the old paint but don't breath the vapours and be careful because it can burn your skin. For the chips I would definitely glue a piece of the same wood and make a good restoration with care.

In order to tan the wood you can expose it to the sun or, if you are not patience enough , you can apply one coat of potassium nitrite (read the danger instructions) and it will accelerate the process, in a couple of hours you will see the result but, obviously, it depends on the wood.

You can see how I tanned a queen in the 3rd video related to this post:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/no-extra-queen-no-problem

Fantastic work! Do you have any experience with lightening the wood? I have some pieces I’ve tried to stain using shellac-based ink, but it turns out too dark. I tried diluting the ink with alcohol, but it’s still too dark, and it makes the application more patchy. Is lightening the wood before staining the way to go, or what would you recommend for a light finish? I think the pieces I’m trying to stain are made of beech wood, but I’m not sure.