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Holiday gifts. They are on the minds of most people as Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukah, and other holidays are getting closer. With the pressure for all shoppers to find the right gift, the perfect gift, for the ones they love. If you have a creative sister or mother, you may buy her paints and brushes. If you have a logical brother or uncle, you may buy him something like a chess board. But what if you could make those paints or that chess board more unique by making them yourself?
 It can be very rewarding to create your own board and your own chess pieces and give one of the more unique gifts possible. It’s a simple process with only a few tools needed.
Ingredients for Chess Pieces
- 32 four-and-one-fourth-inch by two-inch by two-inch blocks of wood
- Pencil and paper
- Chess piece designs
- Bench knife
- V-gouge knife
- Coarse grit sandpaper
- Fine grit sandpaper
- Wood stain
Preparation of Chess Pieces
You need: one king, one queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks and eight pawns, so it is important to have the right number of pieces. Keep in mind that the king is the longest and then gets smaller in size in the order listed above. For perspective the king's base is about half as long as his height while the pawn, the smallest piece, is around half the height of the king. Decide what sizes you want each of your pieces to be and make a list.
Next it’s time to decide what your pieces are going to look like. Look online for plans or blueprints or create your own shapes. Once that has been decided, you can choose the wood to carve with. Beginners can use easier or more soft woods such basswood, butternut and pine. Middle to hard range carvers can use mahogany, walnut and cherry woods.
Finally, you need enough wood for all of the pieces. Although 32 is the exact number of pieces needed, I recommend having more than that in case there are any problem or mistake pieces that need to be re-carved.
Cooking the Final Chess Pieces
It may be easier to buy a 4 x 4 piece of whichever wood you choose before cutting pieces off to carve. Once you have a block to use it’s time to mark your pieces with your designs. Ensure that the design that you find is 100 percent the size that you need for the piece. Resize, enlarge, and reduce, whatever you need to. You can use graphite as an erasable media to add the design or draw the design on paper and put it on the wood as a template.
Start with your king as it is the basis for all other pieces. Carve with your v-gouge carving knife to carve away larger pieces of the block. Do this until the piece is a rough shape of your king, and then use the coarse grit sandpaper to wear down the wood a bit more as the piece is almost ready for details.
Next you will use the bench knife to finish the carving of the king piece. A bench knife makes it easier to add smaller and more refined details. Once you have finished adding the details, you will use the fine grit sandpaper to smooth out any rough spots left on the king. Sand until it feels completely smooth and finished.
You will then complete this until each piece is carved and smoothed. You may want to add a final touch by staining one set of the pieces to have a difference in color.
To add some weight to the pieces, drill a small hole into the base of each finished piece and insert lead into each hole and seal the holes with small plugs that can be glued on. You can even use heavy coins such as foreign coins or otherwise by gluing them to each base of the pieces.
Cooking the Chess Board
You can cut a piece of wood to fit the size such as a cutting board. Then sketch 64 squares with a ruler to make sure the boxes are the right size. Use masking tape to keep the light squares covered while dark stain is applied over the others. You may use light stain or leave the squares alone for the white squares.
Eat and Enjoy
Although you won’t actually cook or eat a chess board, the metaphor works as you use creativity to give one of the more creative gifts you may have given. From clothes to electronics, there are plenty of options for each member of the family. Depending on the kind of person you are buying for can determine the gift you are buying. Have fun shopping, buying or creating whatever gift you choose, and enjoy the smiles that you create with your gifts.
Miscelleana Rhinehart has been a writer for years as she enjoys creating with words. Currently, Nexteppe used her services to create campaigns for NY Mazda dealers to help them with services such as offering online classifieds.
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