Very very nice. You did a great job with the board.
Andy
Thanks much. I know my 3-year-old son and I will get many years of playing out of this board.
I'm in the process of making a second board for my brother-in-law with the squares shaped like jigsaw puzzle pieces.
I like the Isle of Lewis set but for display only. If you want a set to play with it would have to be Staunton. Which one you choose would be a matter of personal taste.
Me too! Nine years ago, when I was in London, I visited the British Museum to have a look at the original Lewis Chessmen (see picture).
I have always wondered with what kind of board they were used. Wood, leather, cloth or stone?
When I was there many of the pieces were on loan to another museum. Still, I took a photo of those on display.
I first saw a reproduction of this set in a shop on 5th Avenue in Manhattan many years ago. If I remember correctly the shop was run by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and there were many beautiful and interesting things in that shop. They were selling the Isle of Lewis chess set for $200. Recently I've seen this set being sold on the internet for around that price. Some places have lower prices but from the photos they posted the cheaper sets don't look as good. The original set dates back 1,000 years. I can just picture Vikings sitting by the fire in their wood house playing chess with this set.
My father has a chess table he made in college. It's out of cherry and walnut. There are three legs on the botton with a helicoil (3 triangles going up at a 30 degree left-hand twist) with a hinged top with royal blue flocking on the interoir. The board itself is inlayed into the table top.
Well, I did it.
I got the Fierce Knight in Ebony, not ebonized, with a 4" king.
After reading about the pros and cons about ebony vs. ebonized I decided to up my price and get the set I really wanted.
This is the set I got:
http://www.thechessstore.com/product/FKE400/Fierce-Knight-Chess-Set-Ebony-Boxwood-Set-4-King.html
Will be shipped today. Looking forward to its arrival.
Thanks for all the recommendations.
A nicely elegant interpretation of the classic staunton design. Congratulations! One warning? Why a chess store can't get board size recommendations down I don't know but their recommendation to use a 2.125 or 2.25 board is bogus. The 2.125 board is too small. The 2.25 is usually thought perfect for a king with a 1.75 base, but some prefer a little more "air" around the pieces and go with a 2.375 board. You can always go mousepad or silicone until you have the bucks for a nice board. That will allow you to see if 2.25 is big enough for your taste. And ebony on a green and white board looks stunning. Enjoy.
The knight is well-done and the bases of the pieces have a nice look.
baddogno,
I have several of the vinyl tournament boads with the 2.25" squares and am going to test the pieces on one of those and see if I should size up.
Thanks for your thoughtful recommendations.
I want to buy a new board and pieces.
Any recommendations?
The forum administrators frown upon peddling own stuff here, but I'll risk it since you are asking directly.
I am a designer of these particular chess pieces:
I spent months on research and sincerely believe they are best. :)
-Izmet
My most beloved chess set is an original 'Yugoslavian Staunton' set, like used in the 50's and 60's, for example during interzonal tournaments and the olympiad.
I believe you are talking about the Dubrovnik:
http://www.bestchessmenever.com/blog/files/the-dubrovnik-chess-set.html
-Izmet
I want to buy a new board and pieces.
Any recommendations?
The forum administrators frown upon peddling own stuff here, but I'll risk it since you are asking directly.
I am a designer of these particular chess pieces:
I spent months on research and sincerely believe they are best. :)
-Izmet
Hi Izmet,
I looked at the chess set you designed and I like a lot of the fluid lines/curves on your pieces. I also liked the polished metal disc at the bottom. I'm not trying to be overly critical here, but as someone who's interested in design, I would like to know how you, the designer of the set, arrived at the final design the Knight. It seems to me to be somewhat "blockish" and a bit out of place from the rest of the pieces of the set. Where the lines of the other pieces project an upward sinous thrust, the Knight lines sort of project more of a downward squattish line--that's the best way I can describe it. When you were making the set, were there other designs for the Knight that you considered or were you pretty much set on this one from the beginning? Also from the pictures, the surface of the Knight piece seems to be somewhat rougher than the super smooth finish on the other pieces. Is that a manufacturing/crafting limitation or is it just how it's photographed?
Again, my intent is to discuss design in a constructive way and one does not often get to talk to the actual designer directly. Your input is much appreciated.
Nice recommendations here. I am also looking for one just for show in my living room...thanks for all the info. This is the one I am thinking of...
it's the "Lotus carved bud rosewood 5.5" set" available at "The Chess Piece" priced at about $200 for the pieces.
... how you, the designer of the set, arrived at the final design the Knight.
I am much of the trial and error school, slowly incrementing to better and better stuff. The knight is always problem, yes. Two reasons for that.
1. Can't turn the knight's heads on a lathe, they need to be carved. Carving is a different skill. On high end sets the heads are usualy done by another worker. The BCE sets are turned *and* carved by one person (G. Novak), a top-notch turner with great-but-still-improving carving skills. I'm not surprised a trained eye caught the set's weakest link. The rougher look of the knight is semi-intentional and improving with each set made.
2. Our perception of how a knight should look like is ruled by 150+ years of the beautiful Staunton/Cooke/Jaques design. On high end sets we are conditioned to expect a detailed and realistic statue of a stallion's head. It was only in 1949 when a Croatian designer Maurović dared to radically stylize the knight in his Dubrovnik design (that I'm obsessed with). If you think about it, the knight is the *only* piece in the Staunton set *not* stylized. Why don't the queens have a pretty lady face with a tiara? And yet, nobody minds this obvious and glaring flaw in the Staunton chess set design.
-Izmet
Let it out of the showcase once in a while .
Oh. My. God.
Nice setup. Bonus points for matching red book. Beautiful. I bow to your collecting skills, sir.
-Izmet
Let it out of the showcase once in a while .
Oh. My. God.
Nice setup. Bonus points for matching red book. Beautiful. I bow to your collecting skills, sir.
-Izmet
I wish it were mine!
It's all this member's doings:
http://www.chess.com/members/view/ComputoJon
He's got some great stuff and is a master and nice guy.
... how you, the designer of the set, arrived at the final design the Knight.
I am much of the trial and error school, slowly incrementing to better and better stuff. The knight is always problem, yes. Two reasons for that.
1. Can't turn the knight's heads on a lathe, they need to be carved. Carving is a different skill. On high end sets the heads are usualy done by another worker. The BCE sets are turned *and* carved by one person (G. Novak), a top-notch turner with great-but-still-improving carving skills. I'm not surprised a trained eye caught the set's weakest link. The rougher look of the knight is semi-intentional and improving with each set made.
2. Our perception of how a knight should look like is ruled by 150+ years of the beautiful Staunton/Cooke/Jaques design. On high end sets we are conditioned to expect a detailed and realistic statue of a stallion's head. It was only in 1949 when a Croatian designer Maurović dared to radically stylize the knight in his Dubrovnik design (that I'm obsessed with). If you think about it, the knight is the *only* piece in the Staunton set *not* stylized. Why don't the queens have a pretty lady face with a tiara? And yet, nobody minds this obvious and glaring flaw in the Staunton chess set design.
-Izmet
Izmet,
thanks for your candid response regarding your design--very informative. it's quite true that the knight always presents special challenges to the design of any set, yet it is the piece that i always look at first. two sets that come to mind that i really admire, are Josef Hartwig's Bauhaus Chess Set and Man Ray's Early Chess Set from that same period. although quite abstract, they seem to still be quite "playable". all the pieces tie in very neatly together design-wise (in my opinion), and Man Ray's choice of knight to resemble a violin scroll is quite beautiful.
I have two ebony sets with matching wooden boards. I use them only for analysis, I fully understand your quest. Chess bazaar has a couple of good ebony sets and boards. I have done busines with them without any problems.
I would prefer walnut over ebony, but that's because I would make my own set (my father is a distinguished woodworker up here in northern Maine) and we would have to pay absurd prices for the ebony ($15 a board foot) as well as buy shelack (may be misspelled) to counteract the oils of the ebony and allow a satin or semigloss (depends on whether we want it to be shiny or lusturous (full gloss makes it look plasticy in my opinion)) polyurethane to stay on the ebony. Besides, we already have walnut and it goes nicely with maple.
Dear Izmet (ifekali), the more I look at your set, the more I like it. Did you ever contact DGT in Holland (providing clocks, sets, etc. for important tournaments) to discuss a version wich can be used with their electronic equipment?
Surely we did. Here's the first DGT equipped batch:
http://www.bestchessmenever.com/limited/
-Izmet
The chess set I got to use on this board was just a cheap but decent double weighted set with 3" kings. It's nothing fancy but not bad for an old piece of plywood.
Very very nice. You did a great job with the board.
Andy