Chess board ideas
 

Hi everyone.

Many many years ago I made a chess board out of wood. I had a plywood base, added cubes of dark and light wood for the squares, added a strip of wood to the border, varnished it like crazy. You might see a pic of it <a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/img/214/1224/1024/chess.jpg">here</a> but I don't think it'll work. Maybe the copy and paste thing does the trick, I'm not sure. If the pic does work, keep in mind the bad digicam, bad lighting, and it's about ten years old now and it's been beaten around a bit.

Anyway, I've been wanting to make a new one. I decided against tiles for the last one (I don't think they look good), and used native Australian wood instead, and it looks fantastic (if i do say so myself!).

So I'm looking for some interesting, uniqued ideas on what materials I can use to make a chess board. Some of my ideas have been:

- Pebbles of two different colors, as squares, with a thick layer of glass over the top. Make the squares out of very thin plywood (or balsa wood?), fill them with pebbles.

- Old computer parts (green motherboards for one color, perhaps old cooling fans for the other)

- Coins

- Old notes from high school cut into squares (yellow paper, white paper perhaps). That would give a cool effect.

Any design that has a rough surface (coins/pebbles/computer parts) would have a layer of glass over the top.

Does anyone have any suggestions, ideas, comments, advice, anything?

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0PgDhAk0SYzjB1LQMn6MwsUq4hO6jwsCnoY2wFjZOInGNH4LScGDNO*eGm1QCkbNxXgSGMb**XvQsamiokRf6*Ofa002a3T6g/chess.jpg?dc=4675483788822338554[/img]

Acrylic would be pretty cool with something imbedded to designate the squares (I like the computer parts thing, coins, etc as they're unique).

As a woodworker, I vote for sticking with the old favorite. I think that using some birdseye maple and some walnut or wenge as a contrast would look great.

I don't think my picture worked, but the last chess board I made was of Australian wood, with a trillion layers of French polish on it. It's a shame I can't remember the name of the wood I used, but it has some fantastic grain.

But yeah, I'm basically think that I've made a wooden chess board, and although I may one day make a better one, for the moment I'm thinking of some unusual ideas to make the board. I don't want anything too strange or abstract that looks weird 'for the sake of looking weird', but a fully-usable board made of unusual items, like computer fans, coins, etc.

A few summers back my best buddy and I went on a 10 day road trip drinking binge. We made it a point to hit as many places as possible and collected match books. Fell short of 64 matchbooks, but it was the start. Last fall he showed me his matchbook/acrylic chess board. Its pretty cool, in a big part because of the memories.

I think Bossnass is on the right track with the matchbooks and memories.

I would take equal parts color photographs and black and white photographs from your past and turn them into a board. If you wanted to get really crazy you could even make the pieces out of photos sandwiched between two small thick squares of plexiglass or something similar.

The photo idea is a really nice one. I don't have a whole lot of photos but if I am for a Christmas deadline it'll give me plenty of time. I've been thinking about that one, and I really like it. Black and white photos, and color photos. I love it :)

This is sort of what I imagined the computer parts board to look like. I admit it doesn't look quite how I imagined, but I'm still considering it. Colors aren't as striking as I hoped they'd be, but I'm still in the planning stages, obviously :)

[img]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0PgADAz8SWzWcDiFVPUIN*Ac1gaVKHvbtEHYtiY6*WqVXzq8b9lZSc88KyZdSHw78kXPNj3aD1IGdYhizz9eS405egIqr586E/board.jpg?dc=4675483966647166976[/img]

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback everyone, I love having a project :)

make the peices out of shot glasses. YOu can then play "drunk chess".

basically the only additional rule is you drink the peices you take. it's a sort of self-balancing game.

skier that is quite possibly the best idea ive ever heard. although it would be semi tough finding so many different shotglasses

Actually you don't need a lot of different ones...

Shot Glass Chess from Restoration hardware
Shot Glass Chess from... Shotglasschess.com

Shotglass Chess from Drinkstuff.com

This is the one I have, you just have to remember to play with two different colored alcohols :)
SHot glass chess from Red Envelope

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As for Dorito --what about marble inlaid in a nice dark wood.

Opals are pretty plentiful in australia - what about a black opal and a light opal? (not high quality ones)

if wood, be sure to finish/seal bottom, or it will warp.

Much better than glass:
If odd, found, rough materials, use pour-on acrylic finish you can get at any hardware store. The instructions are great on the package. Use torch for co2 bubble popping and tent it with poly, etc. Full info here:
http://www.eti-usa.com/consum/envtex/envlite.htm

Instructions and tips links are right at the top of the page. This stuff is bulletproof. I love it. If you don't want high gloss then rub with scotchbrite pad to dull...

Only six different designs and two colours of filling. Though you can get different colours pretty easy with mixes.

Living Grass.

I made a chess board in college.

I used a semi flat piece of dark gray slate. (should be able to find this at Home Depot or Lowes) I then masked off every other square with painters tape and used a spray-on polyurethane to gloss the open squares.

Gives a really neat look. I then attempted to make my own chess pieces out of pottery clay which ended up being more than a disaster.

If anyone tries this, let me know how it turned out for you. I might even post a pic of mine if I find the time.

A pain in the arse maybe, but alternate brushed and polished steel or similar.