metal chess set aluminum brass mikes-models

Firstly the Question

Last year I rekindled my interest in Chess when I started playing this ancient
game again with my brother. I thought it would be nice to manufacture a
freelance design chess set, but loosely based on the famous Staunton style. I
started to sketch what I thought the pieces should look like, and realised very
early on that the ratio of sizes of each piece to each other, was important. Not
just the height of the chess men (and Queen) but also their diameters. So the
first question was formed. Q1. What dimensions for the chess pieces would I
need?

Having settled on a first draft for the design I started to consider the machining
implications, and my skill levels. According to my design all the pieces would
need to have a taper. No problems there, but the pawns and bishops would
need some form of curves machined. The pawns looked nicest to me with a
round top and taper body. The bishops would require some as yet
unidentified method of machining to produce their shape. So how do you turn
round and elongated curved shapes? That was question number two and a
new skill to acquire.

The Rooks required two tapers, and I would like some form of ridge to
separate them. The castellation would be easy enough to machine but how
could I produce such a raised border or collar? Hence question 3, how do
you produce such a collar?

Like many 'self taught' model engineers I refer to books, magazines and
latterly, the internet and DVD's. Searching Google I found several articles on
ball turning tools. One in particular took my fancy and looking in my scrap
box I seemed to have sufficient aluminium and set about making the tool as
described (click here for more information and links)

Now the Answer

Studying the ratio of sizes from sets I already have, I thought that the Kings
should stand 2.25” tall. The Queen's 2”, the bishops 1.75", the knights and
rooks 1.5" and the pawns 1.25”.

Once deciding on how tall I wished the set to be, it was necessary to
determine the diameters. Looking at some mock ups, the best relationship
between height and width would be found by turning the King, Queens,
Bishops, Knights and Rooks from 1" round bar. The Pawns however would
be turned from 0.5" diameter round bar.

So, having now decided the dimensions, it was necessary to create master
copies to be able to create a list of dimensions for such thing as size of dome
on the pawns and angle of the various tapers.

I thought that the easiest to start with was the pawn. Keeping it simply I
decided on a simply tapered body surmounted by a ball end. I decided not to
produce a body and top separate but make the pawn from one piece of
stock.

TO BE CONTINUED