More Chess Pieces

I was inspired a little over a year ago to make some chess pieces when I came across some posts of people that had done it here on the forum. When I tried to design them however, I quickly got discouraged and tinkered with it for a few months and finally gave up. The recent posts on the subject got me interested again and by chance I fell on an easy solution to designing the pieces.

I use Turbo CAD/CAM and realized I could use simple vertical lines of varying heights to represent the apex of each contour on the piece and then use the Spline by Fit Points. Playing with this was quick and easy and allowed me to experiment until I got the basic shape.

Still working on a Knight which will require turning and milling but hope to get something going here in the next few weeks. I did forget to cut the crown properly on the Queen before I parted it off from turning but I will try and make a jig for the dividing head and complete that on the mill later.

I used a Grizzly G0602 I CNC'd recently with a 0.125" cutter I ground up from drill rod and hardened.

Best Regards.

Carl

Finally finished one side but not before bending the queen trying to finish the top. Had to make another one and it turned out nice. The knights were more work than anticipated but they're done and turned out OK.

Very Nice!
Bill

Kinda ... elegant.

Cheers

I started to do this after I built my lathe, but got stalled out quickly. Very nice design and follow through. The knights look great to me. I used to make and sell a few chess boards, but just simply have not had the spare time in recent years. I hope to be able to pick that project back up in the future.
What flavor will the opposition be?

Aluminum might be the easiest and cheapest.
I have considered alternatives a bit. Maybe red brass. Not sure where you would find those rods. :)
Copper? Costly. SS. Hard on the machine. ;)

The pieces look great! If you do them in aluminum you can anodize them different colors for the two sides.

Thanks for the kind words. I already made 3 pawns out of SS and will try to do the knights next which will be the hardest since I will be using the mill. Not sure what to expect but I'm sure I will destroy a few end mills.

Best Regards.

Carl

Quote:

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I already made 3 pawns out of SS and will try to do the knights next

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Titanium - gotta be titanium. (Ti can also be anodised in various colours.)

Wonder what a full set of anodised Ti chess pieces would sell for? Rather a lot, I imagine!

Cheers
Roger

Cm;
As I said above "very nice". For your next project, I have found you some samples to work from!
Better stick with aluminum if you try this one!
Thanks for posting.
Bill

I was looking at current copper prices. Looks like a foot of copper from Enco that is 1.75 diameter is $116.29.
You can get a 6' length of bronze for about $330 that is 1.5".

I turn brass for my products and we do recover and scrap the chips. We keep the chips and drops separate. You get different prices for each. It isn't a lot, but better than throwing it out.
You can scrap a lot of clean turnings, but what they will not take is long steel ribbons. It has to be rendered harmless before they will take it. ;)

SS should look great though and would probably have been my choice as well. It does machine a little different than steel on a mill, so maybe a small learning curve. Looking forward to seeing your results.

Meh, go big or go home!!! :D

Attachment 253248

Very nice, Carl, especially the knights,
I'm working on such project now. 36 mm on the base of pieces.
Did you make the knights on cnc or conventional mill ?
How is the finish for SS? What tool ?

Best regards
Ham

Ham,

The knights took about 8 steps. They were turned on a CNC lathe first. Then moved to my CNC mill and mounted in a dividing head. Some of the operations were done in the vise such as the mouth and nostrils.

The biggest problem was a bit long enough and thin enough to do some of the contours. I took a piece of 0.125" drill rod and made a small bit and then hardened. Did not perform great but did the job.

As for the SS pieces, I decided to use a 3/32" HHS cutoff tool and ground it thinner. Even though it was HHS, it was harder to grind on the green wheel than I expected. It did well but I will still need to do some filing and emery cloth to get it where I would like.

Best Regards.

Carl

Finished up the stainless pieces. Obviously I've been working on the knights for some time now. Brute force and ignorance prevailed and they are done. Tried to grind the sides using a half inch grinding stone used for stainless and it worked but very slow and very hot. I only used compressed air at first but then had to place a dripping wet rag on the side to keep it from discoloring. When trying to grind the profiles with a 0.125" stone, it really did not perform well and they wanted to break. I finally decided to use a 0.125" carbide bit I had and it did much better than I expected. I'm sure the machinist on the forum are shaking their heads. Good learning experience for me though.

Best Regards.

Carl

Very classical, and very elegant.

Cheers
Roger