Rough wooden set

Stumbled across an eBay listing of a janggi set, for very little. Made an offer, which was immediately accepted, so here it is!

The pieces are wooden, very roughly made, and certainly not 'commercial' in any sense. Seller said that a family member had picked it up many years ago in North Korea. So a truly hand-made set from the home of janggi!

As the pieces were so 'rough', I wanted to make a board that matched that. So, basically, a board that looked like it was quickly put together, from material that was just lying around. 

Looking for such material that was 'just lying around', I saw in our shed some wood panels that were part of a box for a fancy wine bottle. Perfect for my rough janggi board!

Joined up the panels, and noticed that they were slightly warped, surely due to the humidity in the shed. Rather than trying to flatten them, I decided not to try and get rid of the warping, and regard it as a design feature rather than a flaw.

Keeping with the 'rough' nature of the board, I simply hand-pained the lines on it, using brown paint.

So this is what the full set looks like!

And to show the slight warping of the board from another angle:

I think the board really fits the pieces, and the warping really does add something unique!

A more fancy Terracotta Warriors set

One of the earlier xiangqi sets in the collection was one with pieces resembling Terracotta Warriors. Those pieces were pretty basic, made from some sort of resin or plastic. 

I was aware that a much more fancy version of this set was on the market, with metal pieces, made from copper and brass. As you might expect, usually with asking prices well above what I was willing to pay. Until one day ...

The set comes with a wooden box, containing the pieces nicely embedded. 

The box opens up to serve as the board.

And here is the full set, with all pieces in their starting position.

Same figures as my earlier, more basic, Terracotta Warriors set. Same size, but just higher up the 'fancy scale'!

Pocket set

Saw this small pocket xiangqi set on Temu, and, well, couldn't resist ... Comes in a wee plastic box:

And the board is a transparent plastic film:

It's not the smallest xiangqi set in the collection. That 'honour' still goes to the dollhouse set I got a few years ago.

Two Chess Bazaar xiangqi sets

A number of years ago, I get my hands on replicas of two Chess Bazaar sets: one 'Space Age' set and one 'Chavel Karpov' set. Both sets came from the same seller, and he was pleased they remained together.

These two sets also came with extra queens, and that made me realise that I could actually use them for xiangqi, by using the two queens per side as cannons, and, given that xiangqi uses five soldiers (= pawns) rather than eight, use two of the three 'left-over' pawns as guards within the palace.

So here is the 'Space Age' set on a large faux-leather xiangqi board:

I do think that works nicely!

The 'Chavel Karpov' set is a bit bigger and chunkier, so I decided to put that on the XL xiangqi board I created recently:

Again, works very well!

In case you're wondering whether having pawns for soldiers as well as guards causes confusion .... no, it doesn't. As the guards can't leave the palace, and soldiers can't move backwards into their own palace, a white 'pawn' in the 'black' palace has to be a soldier. And a black 'pawn' in the 'black' palace has to be a guard. And vice versa. So no source for confusion!

Creating an XL xiangqi board

When placing my ebony, rosewood, or bamboo pieces on the faux leather board that came with the pieces in their carry case, it just felt a bit too cramped, the stones are just a tad too close together in my view.

Well, there is a clear and simple solution to that: create a larger board for them! From the onset, I wanted to stick with faux leather for the playing surface, so the search was on for an XL faux leather xiangqi board. That search didn't take much time!

Next, the base to sport the faux leather. Went for simple plywood, with fancy wooden strips along the edges.

The circumference of the base received two coats of pine wood stain (no need to stain the centre, of course).

Subsequently, the playing surface was added.

Done! So how does it look with the pieces on it?

Ebony pieces first:

How about the rosewood pieces?

And, finally, the bamboo pieces:

Much better, I think! I really feel the pieces have more 'breathing space' on this XL board, so mission achieved!

Rosewood xiangqi set

Some years ago, I got myself a very nice xiangqi set with chunky ebony pieces, and, quite recently, a similar set with bamboo pieces. One set with very dark pieces, one set with very light pieces .... I regularly see a set with rosewood pieces on-line; rosewood would fit nicely between ebony and bamboo, but these sets are always with asking prices which are way above what I'm willing to spend on a xiangqi set (no matter how nice it is). 

Until I saw a rosewood set on Temu, for very little (shipping was included; it was just shipped over land, so it took quite a while to reach me, but I wasn't in any rush). Finally, I could scratch that proverbial itch!

The rosewood set came in the same case as the other two.

And with the same faux leather board.

You have to admit: the rosewood stones fit very nicely colour-wise between the very dark ebony and the very light bamboo stones, right?

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Sticker set

I stumbled across this large sticker sheet of a xiangqi board and pieces:

Quite unusual, and of course it inspired me to use this to create a physical xiangqi board and pieces. Came across a cheap travel set for go, and the board looked exactly the right size for the dimensions of the 'sticker board'.

Works a treat! The 'sticker board' also has some holographic effects 'built in', which really shows when the light hits it from a certain angle.

As to the xiangqi pieces, the go pieces that came with the go board were too small for the 'sticker pieces', so I decided to use red and yellow glass pebbles.

Stickers for the pieces were stuck to the flat (rather than the curved) sides of the glass pebbles. And this is what the completed set looks like:

Looks pretty good as far as I'm concerned!

Because the pieces 'lie' on their curved side, they wobble slightly when added to the board, which gives the whole an interesting little extra.

And I also found a nice little bag to keep the pieces in!