Carving a Hillbilly Chess Set

Stage your own battle between the Hatfields and McCoys with patterns for a complete chess set

Most of my carvings tend to be small so I can move from an idea to a finished piece relatively quickly. After creating a few typical hillbilly caricatures, they took on a life of their own. It turned into a family feud on opposite sides of a chess board.

I’m not sure if the Hatfields and the McCoys play chess, but if they did, it would look like this. The king and queen on one side are the mother and father; the king and queen on the opposite side are the daughter and her soon-to-be husband—who has a fondness for moonshine. That’s why the bishops are preachers on one side and moonshine jugs on the opposing side. Mules seemed to be a fitting substitute for the traditional knights and outhouses are a humorous replacement for the rooks.

The carving instructions focus on the pawns, awaiting instruction with their hands tucked behind their backs, but the general technique is the same for all the pieces. I use a methodical approach to carving represented by the initials “RBD.” The first step is “R” or roughing out the carving, which is followed by “B” or blocking out the shape. The final step before painting is “D” which stands for adding detail.

I use the Ortel V-gouge made by Denny Neubauer to rough out the carvings. The V-gouge has straight sides like a V-tool, but the point at the bottom is rounded like a gouge. It is very useful when roughing out and blocking in a carving.

Click here to view 3-D model of this project.