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Chessmen

Alan Judy

Alan Judy

Joined
Aug 8, 2009
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Location
Springfield, OH
I am planning on turning a set of chessmen and need advice on how to carve the knights. I would like to turn the base on the lathe and then shape the horse head by hand. I have seen penn state's method of making the knight but I want more of traditional carved style. Does anyone have experience in this area? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Woodturning Workshop...

...just did a show on chess. He didn't carve any of the pieces, made the king the biggest, with the queen a bit smaller.
I don't know the number of the show,😱 sorry. But Tim does a good job when he gets to the lathe.
Glen
 
Turn the head

Spindle turn a head that is 360 degrees. Similar to a hat with multiple diameters and brims. Then carve off each side of head and the space between the ears. Practice on junk wood before you risk your good matching stuff. 🙂
 
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What he said, but use a four-jaw chuck to hold the workpieces for carving too. The jaw gaps will provide indexing (visual close enough), to get the sides symmetrical. Same for carving the cross on the top of the kings, and similar for cutting the slots on the castles (rooks), except add the mid-points of the jaws for eight slots.

[Clarification: Leave the chuck still mounted on the lathe for maximum stability. Build and place a small table on the lathe bed for hand support. You can do the carving with regular carving chisels, or a hand-held Dremel with a variety of bits.

With any luck, Mike Darlow's book includes these tricks. If not, maybe the next edition.]
 
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Mike Darlow has a whole book dedicated to turning chessmen...chess people?

Anyway he covers how to make the horse head Knight and others.

Book was available thru turning supply houses. Nice reference book to have

A
 
From Old Text

The following are plans from an old text that is available on the "Project Gutenburg" site.
 

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Mark Hubl:

That's a lot of detail, but not much distinction among the different pieces, even with all the complexity.

According to my imperfect knowledge, tournament play requires use of the Staunton pattern, which is loosely defined. Distinctive features are the large bases for stability, gradual variation in heights, and easily recognized details at the tops or overall shapes - the cross for the kings, notched coronet for the queens, slot for the bishops, etc. Especially the easily recognized details.

Here are a couple pictures among several I've harvested from the internet. These seem to be the best profile views, for preparation of turning templates. Note the simpler regions of the towers, with only a few coves and beads.
 

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CAD ideas for a carving starting point

Here is an idea I generated in CAD for a starting point to carve from. The knight.jpg is the end result. Starting by turning the knight_blank1.jpg and carving out the part on the backs and sides or holding in a fixture and cutting with power tools.
 

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Look up Fox Chapel publishing, in East Petersburg, PA. They have a new book on chess pieces. I visited there 2 weeks ago and they had chess sets on display in the office. Great place and they have several books on chess sets.
 
Ran across interesting chess piece pictures several years ago.

I will try to help you find neat pictures of a chess set turned at a Germany woodturning "school". The pictures are copyrighted so I will not paste them into this thread.

Go to http://www.drechselstube.de/kursfotos.php?kurs=20071101


Now if you read German you are set, otherwise in the middle of the page is:
Kursfotos

Jahr und Kurs wählen: Pull down 2007 here

pick "Schachfiguren mit Uwe Uhlig vom 01./02. November 2007"

from the pull down list beside the 2007 date you already picked.

You are now given thumbnails of the photographs of the chess set class at the bottom of the page. Click on the pictures of the set that look interesting.

You can also try other years and dates for other neat class pictures. Lots of interesting teachers too (Uwe Uhlig, Phil Irons, Ray Key, Hans Weissflog, J.F. Escoulen, etc.)

Enjoy.
 
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