First attempt at a chess set

**LiliB** · 4th January 2012, 11:08 AM

Hi everyone

David has just finished scrolling a set of chessmen. He used Pawlonia for the 'white' set and Red gum for the 'black'. I bought him some books for Christmas, hoping to interest him in more than just wooden model cars. After having chosen the book on chess sets in the hope that it might present a challenge, he just said, 'Piece of cake' and went out and made them.

The Pawlonia ones being very soft, only took minutes, however, as usual the red gum was time consuming (8mins vs 20mins).

They need finishing of course. As you can see the red gum ones looks nice oiled, whilst the pawlonia ones will be done with shellac, in hopes that the colour doesn't change too much. That'll be my job. Not looking forward to it as I seem to have the concentration span of an infant at the moment.

David has made a grid to go inside a box which will hold the chessmen. Once the whole lot is finished, pictures will follow. This design is the simplest one, and I think they look quite nice.

Cheers
Lili

**coffenup** · 4th January 2012, 11:32 PM

I like the look of it
Regards Michael

**munruben** · 5th January 2012, 12:08 AM

Me too, looks great, well done

**codysheridan1** · 5th January 2012, 12:39 AM

lookin' good! I would have to say that doing that would give me a headache

**BobR** · 5th January 2012, 08:34 AM

Well done

**crowie** · 5th January 2012, 09:15 AM

G'Day Lili,
Big move from the beautiful model cars he's done in the past.
David has surely done a great job on the chess pieces; he must have a good quality scrollsaw for the fine deal.
Is there a chess board coming too, in the same timber selection?
Cheers, crowie

**LiliB** · 5th January 2012, 10:45 AM

Hi everyone

Thanks for the comments. Much appreciated.

Crowie, I have mixed feelings about the chess board. It's an enormous amount of work for not a big return. I'm still thinking about doing it the easy way, perhaps incorporating a cheap ready made one in a wooden frame. We really don't have any suitable material on hand, and this set was only made because he had wood in his workshop.

I bought a heap of Pawlonia, thinking it would perhaps come in handy for the cars. Turns out he thinks it's too soft to use that way. The red gum pieces were made from garden stakes that happened to be the right size and were around the yard in sufficient numbers.

David isn't generally patient enough to wait for me to organise wood. When he feels like building something, he wants to do it now

As to his scrollsaw it is the Rolls Royce, a Hegner. Lovely machine. I chose that one to buy because I always felt that when David's skills improved he'd ask a lot more from his equipment than he did as a beginner. It would have become very frustrating had he not had, for example, the scope to vary his speed from barely moving to high speed.

Recently he cut a fretwork pattern out of brass and to do that successfully you have to be able to really slow the machine. Speed is also critical to cutting perspex where if you cut too quickly the heat melts the plastic onto your blade. So the Hegners progressive variable speed function is often critical to getting a good job.

So while a poor craftsman might blame his tools, a good craftsman should thank his.

**artme** · 16th January 2012, 04:40 PM

An interesting departure from Turned pieces and well done!!!

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