Cybergeek's DIY Chess Set

The how-to of the chess set I made my (now ex-) girlfriend for Christmas.

Step 1: The initial plotting

So, back in 2007, I decided I'd make my board-game loving then-girlfriend a chess set for Christmas. This, however, would be no ordinary chess set. No, this chess set would rock her socks right off, given half a chance.

The first thing I needed to do was decide how big I wanted to make the board, so I could plot out how big to make the pieces and such. I was trying to decide between having each square be 1.5" and 1.25" to a side - the red outline in the picture would, of course, be for the 1.5" squares. I'm pretty proud of how I did this (graph paper is your friend, folks!), especially with the overlapping and such.

Comments

[Lt. Duct Tape]

Could you please add a step on HOW to give it to the girl?

[cybergeek]

The answer that took 3 years to come is, sadly, not that great:

If she'd liked it, I'd have done so. She, however... well, was less than thrilled. Apparently despite being a lover of board games, she despised chess.

Also, we broke up, so there's that.

[minipoppy]

As someone who isn't a massive chess fan I would still feel honoured to have a geeky boyfriend who put the effort and thought into making something as awesome as that for me. Congratulations on a project well executed.

[--= Excogitate =--]

 Awesome! I just made an aluminum foundry and now I know what to do with it! Great instructable :)

[rogueaviation]

I love this style of project.  Loved the write up! 
Rock-on cottage industry (style) projects!!!!

[Sevion]

Wow, your girlfriend is a pretty lucky woman. :P

[qon duixote]

excellent project I really liked how clean the final product looked in the case. I'm in need of a chess set while overseas and I can't bring myself to buy a boring old plastic one, this looks like a good project. A carpenter's rule of thumb, wood from a lumber yard is almost always shorter than they claim (that's what she said). It's a result of the width of the cutting tools, usually it's just as easy as asking for lumber cut to size if you don't have your own equipment, but I recommend bringing your own tape measure to the store for most projects

[qon duixote]

oops, I guess someone already answered that question

[znelson710]

This looks rally cool. I think the peices needed to be filled out more like with nuts all up and down, they look really skinny. this whole thing loks like its part of a contemperary art exhibit. you could have masked off the metal plates and cut the squares out of the tape then painted the metal instead of the squares being a separate material.

[imshanedulong]

Cool! I would make one, but I stink at chess (And yet I'm a nerd. Kinda ironic.).

[jaredisasushi]

This thing is amazing ;D

[hihahockey]

you know the dark squares and the white squares are in the wrong place

[cybergeek]

Not if you rotate the board 90 degrees they're not ;)

[ZenThruCraft]

that is awesome dude!

[cosgrove]

Great Instructable, Had me laughing. I'd make my own, but I'd porbably end up forgetting a certain vital part.. 5/5

[maclakey]

Like the King?

[maclakey]

Really very nice! I throughly enjoyed the beer I was drinking, oh, and of course, the well thought out and very humorous dialog throughout your instructable. I look forward to building my own!

[cybergeek]

Glad to hear it - send me a link to some pics when it's done! :-D

[Koolraap]

wow, thats SO cool. it's way prettier than those glass chessboards

[cybergeek]

Thanks! I'm thinking about maybe making myself one, but in green instead of blue...not sure if the paint exists, though :-\

[Koolraap]

green for a chess board ? wouln't do that tho. you could use yellow / purple :P

[SpinWard]

This is beautiful. My dad doesn't play chess but he will think this is really cool! My mom work for a HVAC company and I can get them to cut the squares and bend some pieces for the edges. Thanks for the great idea!

[cybergeek]

My pleasure - I'd love to see how it turns out!

[earthstation]

That is absolutely beautiful. I think I'm going to need to save up for a while to build this.... Just out of curiosity about how much did this cost you?

[cybergeek]

All in all, probably in the area of $60-75, but I also had a lot of stuff that I didn't need to buy (like the edging, solid metal sheet, etc). Biggest cost, easily, was the spray paint and clear coat. If you can find a less-pricey alternative, you'll be sitting pretty. :D

[papalevies]

Super cool project and very fine looking result but I wouldn't give it to a girl for Christmas (after all I'd rather keep it for myself ;). I hope she appreciated it.

[edward32214]

This is AWESOME...i want one how much

[Bor]

I love it!

[marcward86]

i really like the pieces. i was skeptical at first, but they turned out really well.

[bgugi]

with your board size complaint, did you not know that almost all modern wood measurements are the pre-shrunk measurements? they cut the wood green, measure, then dry, causing shrinkage. that's why your 12x12 was not 12x12.

[cybergeek]

Aha! Thanks for the information - any idea *why* they do it like that? Seems to me like it'd be more helpful to the consumers (i.e. the people who pay everyone else to do all this) if the measurements were of the "current" sizes, instead of the "when it was fresh" sizes...

[chew socks]

SWEET!!! I am so gonna make one of these. That's awesome! Finish it soon, I need to know the rest.

[PKM]

Well documented and photographed, an original idea, beautiful design, your writing is amusing and the phrase "I math goodly" made me laugh like an idiot. I don't care if it's not finished yet, you get a + Looking forward to the conclusion!

[mrmath]

Is this done? You seem to have left off in mid build. How did you do the queen? How did you do the board?

[cybergeek]

Not finished yet. I finished that last step at like 5am and decided sleep would be good. More is soon to come! :D

[T3h_Muffinator]

Dude! That's awesome! I wanna make a giant version of this with welded pieces, that should be sick!

[GorillazMiko]

dang, thats freaking COOL!

[Weissensteinburg]

Now that's cool!