Strangely, this is one of my longest-standing dreams as a designer. A dear friend once told me that every imporant designer has their chess set. Though I certainly didn't know this when I was 8 years old and trying to carve one out of soap. I quickly worked out that it was nearly impossible for me. But I never stopped thinking about making a chess set all the way into my adult life.
This set, it's one of the highest labor items in the house. It's so ridiculously laborious that I was daydreaming about being finished while I was making it. The set, a gift for my son, Otto, came out better than I could've ever dreamed, honestly. It's a complete joy to play with.
The pieces, of course, are a melding of 2D chess iconography and 3D classic chess pieces. The board is torch-burned bamboo. I still need to build a box on the bottom of the board to house the pieces.
First prototype king design
experimenting with blackening the wire
one of my favorite pieces is my rook design
prototyping the chess board design
The QUEEN! - you can see how they attach to the lower wire ring
black and white bishops on the bamboo board
a chess game in progress
the black pieces
the knights were really tricky
another shot of my maybe my favorite design of the set, the rook
this was the first piece i made and it set the size and tone for the whole project. you can see the base design was not like the final solution
an excellent base design found
figuring out scale here for all the pieces
This is the first time i saw all the pieces together, as in a representation of each piece design.
I get asked a lot if i used a jig. NOPE all freehand. It has to be, because jig bending these would be impossible.
Symmetry check of the rooks.
forming one bishop from another
Hard to see here, but this is actually a partial second held in front of the first
I think this was the first time an entire side was made
Lonely bird meets the kind and queen
all 4 knights
Shows how all the pieces are made
The whole set, but before black was black
Other folks from the shop come to visit
The first blackening
Awesome, black and white are done, now for the board.
My son, Otto, for whom I made this chess set. He is happier and more impressed than it seems.
