Xiangqi set

It was Xiangqi, Chinese chess, that first made me aware that there are multiple variants of chess. I was introduced to the game by a friend of mine, 'Mijn Kees', and we played several games with his set. Keen to get my own set, I bought a typical Xiangqi set in a Chinese shop in Leiden: disks with red and green Chinese writing and a folded-up paper board. Board like that works fine if you want to play a game, of course, but I wanted to create something a bit nicer ...

I finally ended up with a board which basically consists of cocktail sticks, lots of cocktail sticks: well over 1000 of them! Yes, it took a lot of time finishing it.

'Mijn Kees' and I used the board a lot when I still lived in the Netherlands, and, for a while after I moved to the UK, I had it out when we played games over email.

Fast forward something like 20 years: I still had the pieces in a drawer, while the board had ended up in the back of the shed, damaged and dirty. It clearly was in need of some TLC!

Time to clean it up, restore it, and, where possible, make it look even nicer than it did originally. Damaged sticks in the 'river' were removed, and the 'river' was given a fresh lick of black paint in order to make it match the black lines of the board better.

I then took the decision to use cocktail sticks for inlaying the 'river' as well, but with their orientation turned 90 degrees compared to the rest of the board. Time had given the original cocktail sticks a somewhat darker colour, which actually worked well as it enhanced the contrast with the 'river'.

Next step was to inlay the two 'palaces', with cocktail sticks at a 45 degree angle to those on the main board.












Edges, made from matchsticks, were cleaned, sanded down, and finally dark-varnished.

Final step in the restoration was to clean up the pieces, and my Xiangqi set had been brought back to life again, looking better than ever!

This being the third chess board I ever made, I'm still pretty chuffed with it close to 30 years later. Very glad that this one did survive!

Glass vial set

My second chess set was mostly made from glass. To be more specific, the pieces were made from various glass vials, tubes and pipettes, which I got from the lab I worked in then. For each of the pieces, I tried to put together tubes of differing sizes such that it captured the 'character' of the piece. The 'white' pieces were left unpainted, whereas the 'black' pieces were made black by pouring black paint into the tubes and vials, and letting that paint slowly flow out along the sides of the vials. For the pipettes, capillary action proved very useful! Painting the pieces on the inside like that created a very nice glossy look.

The board was made from a piece of Perspex, with adhesive black plastic used for the black squares.

I was really happy with how this set turned out! Unfortunately, due to its fragile nature, it did not survive the various house moves, and all that remains of it is the one picture shown above, taken in the snow ...

Sea shells set

The very first chess set I ever made was based on sea shells and other sea creatures. Back then I lived close to the sea, so a few hours searching for sea shells on the Scheveningen beach got me everything I needed. Cockles for the rooks, crab carapaces for the knights (crabs often partly moving sideways matched the move of the knight, I felt), mussels for the bishops, razor shells for the queen and a whelk for the king. Ordinary surf clams for the pawns, and all pieces mounted on draught stones. The 'white' set was painted white, and the 'black' set metallic blue; I felt those colours captured 'the sea'. Board was made from plywood, with the squares painted white and metallic blue.

I was rather pleased with it, to be honest! Sadly, the set is long gone, and all I have left of it are two pictures.

Not ruling out, by the way, that I'll make another chess set from sea shells in the future. It won't be identical to this first one, though!

Chess variants, chess sets, chess creations

Hi there!

Ever since I found out that chess as played under FIDE rules is just one of many many variants, I've been interested in the origin and history of this family of games. This may be partly because I'm an evolutionary biologist; more on that in a future blog post ....

In parallel with this growing interest, I also became interested in designing and making chess sets myself. These creative urges first surfaced something like 30 years ago, when I still lived in the Netherlands. I made a few sets then, and continued to do so for a few years after moving to the UK some years later. Other interests took over for a while, but my chess set creations were rekindled until workload pushed them back yet again. Now that I've gotten my life back workwise, creative juices are slowly starting to flow again. To accompany this 'third wave', I thought I'd create a blog, presenting the sets I made in the past, and taking that to the present.

My intention with this blog is not to offer any of the sets commercially. For me, the fun is in designing and making the pieces and/or the board. Doing the same set twice doesn't have any creative value, at least not to me.

Some of the sets presented in this blog are made entirely myself, some have a board made for existing pieces, and there will also be a few sets in my collection that I got without too much creative input (or none whatsoever!). I'll also throw in some information occasionally on chess variants, and on the origin and early history of the game.

Hope you enjoy!