Need direction on chess patterns

[thompson_trey]

I would love to hand carve my own chess set. I have seen the patterns on little shavers but am looking for something a little more detailed. Thanks for any information you can give me.

[Claude]

Welcome to the forum. Look up above this message and click on Search in the green bar. Put the word "chess" in there and you'll find lots of info.

Claude

[Gulf Coast Handyman]

Woodcarving Illustrated - Hillbilly King

Dave

[Mitchell]

You need to be a little more specific. I have not looked up the Little Shavers pieces, but there are other places on the internet to look them up. Do you want a traditional set or one based on some type of theme?

There are MANY different themes for chess pieces (as the 'Hillbilly' one referenced above ), or you could come up with your own. My favorite are cowboy and indian related.

[Robert Cahill]

Also issue 43 has plans for a chip carved set

[Jim Arnold]

Come up with your own idea...

If you play, you understand the difference in importance between the playing pieces and the pawns. I 'try' to keep the pawn designs simple (because you're carving 16 of them) and then get detailed with the rest.

Come up with the theme first. Secondly, think up a cast of characters involved with your theme. Assign your 'cast' according to the position its going to hold on the board.

Always remember you're carving 32 pieces, and modify your piece poses according to how much time you want to spend on the set.

Make your own patterns (its easy) and you'll have a one-of-a-kind creation of your own design. I've made over 75 different themed sets and have more ideas in my head for sets then I have time left to carve them.

If you want something REALLY unique and special don't forget to carry your theme through to the design and landscape of your board too!

A well thought out theme almost takes your mind off the game when you're playing, the positions of the pieces while you're playing constantly change and tell their own story...its kind of distracting. This 'distraction' can be used to your advantage when you're playing somebody you REALLY want to defeat, lol.

If I can help, please let me know and be sure to post some pics.

Jim

[nukebubba]

Originally Posted by Jim Arnold

Come up with your own idea...


Make your own patterns (its easy) and you'll have a one-of-a-kind creation of your own design. I've made over 75 different themed sets and have more ideas in my head for sets then I have time left to carve them.



If I can help, please let me know and be sure to post some pics.

Jim

I would like to some day carve a set of Civil War pieces. The power pieces would be recognizable officers of each side (Lincoln, Grant, Davis, Lee, etc.) and the pawns would be enlisted troops of various types. I know this would be a major time commitment, but I truly intend to do it. BUT, I have no idea how to take historical information and photographs and use them to make my own patterns, which you say is easy. Could you provide some pointers on how to go about making patterns? How do you develop front, side, and back views when you may only have a single photo to go by?

[Jim Arnold]

Yep, that one will take time, but you'll have a great set when you're finished.

To make your own patterns for a set like that (and you're not comfortable with just free-hand drawing) you will have to research out lots of old photos. Let's start with Lincoln, go to google.com enter Abe Lincoln in the search box, of course you'll get millions of listings, but 'click' on the "images" tab up at the top and there will be thousands of pics of Lincoln from all angles. Pick the pose you want, and save the pics to your file, depending on the programs you have with the printer on your computer, you can either reduce or enlarge the photos when you print them out (if your computer can't do this...print out the photos and take them to your library and ask the librarian to help). WHat you want to end up with are flat plane views of the front and side that are the same height (the height you want your pieces to be), you not only have your patterns, but real life photos showing the detail of what you want your final piece to look like. Because its a chess set, the bases of your pieces will be the same, so make your blocks 2" square (or whatever size you like based on the size of the squares of the chessboard) and you can lay your 'front side' photo on the block, cut it, then turn it on the side and do the same for the side view...its not really necessary to have four views for the initial patterns. Once both the front and side views are cut, get your pencil out and draw, just generally, where the arms on each side are, how his top hat sits on his head, where his coat ends and trousers begin, etc., etc, Once you start to do that, you'll get an idea of how your carving will end up looking...the 'blob' of the front and side cuts you just made, will make sense to you, and you can dig in, as you remove some of your pencil work on the figure, re-draw it in there as you get down to doing the finer detail. Try to start with your pawns. You mentioned various enlisted troops if, each pawn is going do be different it won't matter where you start, but if some of them will be the same, it will help you to begin there, by giving you some repetitive practice. I just finished a presidential chess set that had Lincoln in it...I'll attach a pic of him here and of a Civil War set I did a few years back and send the pattern to you in a few days. At the moment I'm snowed in about an hour away from my shop and dont have access to them.

Jim

[nukebubba]

Thanks for the tips. And thanks for the offer. I have done a lot of the research already, and I have some very good pictures. However, they are almost all single views; facing or profile, or 3/4 profile. The thing I can't figure is how to generate a side view if I just have a front view, etc.