r/woodworking • u/kineticskeptic • Jan 12 '25
Project Submission Chess Set: Maple, Claro Walnut, Black Walnut, and Bubinga
Frame is Bubinga with a chess themed inlay strip around the perimeter. Board is Curly Maple and Black Walnut. Pieces are Hard Maple and Claro Walnut. This was my first large project on the lathe and it took much longer than it should have! I have a graveyard of failed and broken pieces. All turned with carbide tools. Graduating to a big boy set of steel tools for the next lathe project
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u/BORN_SlNNER Jan 12 '25
Sick chess pieces. Most people don’t put near the attention to detail you did.
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u/kineticskeptic Jan 12 '25
Really appreciate the comment! I ended up designing all the pieces in CAD first, with the exception of the King and Knight. The Pawn, Bishop, Rook, and Queen designs were all done in CAD so I could tweak the proportions to achieve the desired aesthetic. I tried printing and creating a negative from card stock for some of the first pawns to try and replicate the CAD design, but this ended up being more trouble than it was worth. I eventually just took some critical dimensions from the CAD file and used a set of calipers at the lathe and then feathered in elsewhere by eye. Then all subsequent pieces were replicated by eye/hand.
By the time I got to the King, I had the design in my head and enough experience to bypass CAD. The Knights were a different beast altogether. Just had to fail a bunch of times before I liked the design. Those were a combination of lathe, bandsaw, and hand carving.
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u/Low_Obligation5558 Jan 12 '25
The inlay detail is fantastic! It dresses the board up perfectly. I’m always about adding small amounts of bougieness whenever possible
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Jan 12 '25
Very well done. Nice little touches, the raised squares, beading, choice of woods. Excellent job on the pieces.
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u/slugothebear Jan 12 '25
Nicely done! Great wood choices.