The Staunton chess, designed in the Victorian era, is the official model of international competitions. It is possible to make a Staunton chess set by hand but, if you want to hone your manual skills or just for fun, you can decide to use your imagination to create an original chess set.
Steps
Step 1. Choose the theme and characters
Choose the theme using your imagination; you can create, for example, a set of ghosts and demons, of Harry Potter characters, a set of frogs, of hens, or you can be inspired by the chess of Alice in Wonderland. A chess set inspired by the Native Americans of the prairies can also be very impressive.
Step 2. Establish the characters of your chess set
A standard set consists of a king, a queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, eight white and eight black pawns for a total of 32 pieces.
Step 3. Establish an engraving technique and material
For example, you can make a set using a high-speed Dremel engraver, bench sander, and wooden spikes as the engraving material.
Step 4. Establish the measure of the chess
There are chess sets large enough to take up a large part of the home garden or molded plastic sets small enough to fit in a collapsible chess board inside a jacket pocket. However, the most common chess sets require the king, the main piece, to be between 7 and 10 cm high and the other pieces gradually smaller. Being the first time you try this feat, it is advisable to make the King of about 9 cm in height with a base of about 1.5 cm, with the height decreasing for the other pieces by about 6 mm up to the pedestrian of about 6 cm. Cut the wooden pins to the right length one side at a time. Mark on each shape thus obtained which chess piece it refers to.
Step 5. Design the pieces
Three-dimensional engraving is an exercise in spatial relationships. Sculpture can also be thought of as a five-dimensional engraving (the four sides and the top). Develop an image of the object to be engraved to scale for all four dimensions. Remember the limits of the shape in height and width. Graph paper is useful in the design phase because it helps to transfer the image from one side to the next.
Step 6. In human engravings it is always difficult to recalibrate the size exactly
Do a search on the internet, you will surely find illustrations that can be resized as desired. Generally, the scaling is based on the size of the figure's head.
Step 7. A 5: 1 ratio should be established where:
- 1 is the head;
- 2 is the neck to the end of the chest;
- 3 is from the chest to the hips;
- 4 is from the hips to the knees;
- 5 what remains.
Step 8. Prepare the templates to transfer the design made
Draw a line on one side of the template to represent the front. Draw a side-to-side line that divides the end of the shape in half. Bring the drawn line down to the back of the template. Draw a line that divides the top line in half and bring it down to the right and left sides of the template.
Step 9. Carry the four sides of your 2D design onto the wood, making sure the left and right sides coincide
If you have chosen wood spinets as your carving material, you have already done a good deal of the rough carving work. Otherwise, look carefully at your drawings and draw lines on the shapes where there is excess material. There will be some excess material on the pins as well, so this tip will save you some time later.
Advice
The characters you use for each piece must have totally different characteristics than the other chess characters. You can carve a tribal chief with a three-feather headdress to depict the King; an elegant Indian woman with a dance shawl to represent the Queen; a healer who has a buffalo horned headdress as a standard bearer; a warrior kneeling with two feathers like Horse (maybe he could shield his eyes from the sun with one hand) and a tepee (the typical conical Indian tent) for the Tower. Pedestrians wear only a feather and are child-sized compared to other characters. They look like young warriors of the tribe. Based on the measurements, the material and your skills, try to use realistic elements making them as detailed as possible to define well the characteristics of each character
Warnings
- You might be tempted to double the size of the shapes and carve two pieces at a time, but that wouldn't be a good idea. Separating the two pieces at the end, without the aid of tools of the trade, is more difficult than you think.
- If you use the bench sander be thrifty - it is easy to remove more than necessary and find yourself with uneven bases and wobbly pieces.
