Wooden modern chess set

I was looking for a simple modern wooden chess set to add to the collection. Saw this one on eBay, for not very much at all, so bought it. Turned out the light pieces did not have dark accents in the way that the dark pieces have light accents, so I added those myself (still some creative input!)

I think it is a nice-looking set, and well-made. Certainly not something I would have been able to do, not having any wood-working skills.

Klin Zha set

If you're a Trekkie, you're probably familiar with Klin Zha, the chess variant played by the Klingons in Star Trek. I did make a Klin Zha set a long time ago, using leather for a board, and leather-on-plastic-triangles for the pieces.

That set is long gone, like so many of my early sets, and it certainly wasn't my best effort, so nothing much lost ...

Inspired by some posts on the Klin Zha Facebook page, I decided I was going to have another attempt at creating a Klin Zha set. Considering options, I stumbled across Star Trek micro-machines, and managed to get my hands on a job lot of them off eBay:

Plenty of spaceships to create two sets of pieces! Actually, plenty to create three sets of pieces! One set representing the Klingon Empire, painted gold:

One set representing the Romulan Alliance, painted metallic green:

And one set representing the Federation, painted silver:

Leather is quite a Klingon material, so for the board I decided to stick to leather, in three colours: beige and black for the fields, and brown for the edge of the board.

Trying out different stitches on our new sewing machine, I found one with a clear Klingon 'feel' to it (the top one in the picture below):

First job was to cut out all the triangular fields ...

... and attach them to the back of the board.

Fields were sewn together and to the back of the board using brown thread and the 'Klingon' stitching.

To identify the starting point of each of the three fleets, I created black leather circles with the identifying logos of the three participants painted on.

And then it came down to creating the edges of the board ...

... incorporating the logos at the three points ...

... and folding over and sewing together the edges.

Board done!!

So here, on the board and in close-up, the fleets of the Klingon Empire, Romulan Alliance and the Federation.

As the board is too big to easily store (1.33m each side) it hangs on our bedroom wall when not used.

Creating this Klin Zha set took a lot of time and effort, and even though I say so myself, I'm really proud of it. Most definitely much better than my first attempt, and quite possibly my best chess set so far.

Janggi set

My 'second wave' of creating chess sets commenced in 2013, when I restored my old Xiangqi board. While doing that, I found this box with original pieces for Janggi, Korean chess, in a drawer. I don't remember now exactly when and where I got it, maybe eBay, maybe in Chinatown in London. Wherever and whenever I got it, it definitely sat in a drawer for a long time; long enough to finally give the pieces a board to sit on.

I wanted the board to match the pieces, so quickly decided on white Perspex as the material to use. And to make it look a bit better, I felt that a sheet of semi-opaque Perspex on top, through which you could see the lines, could work really nicely.

So Perspex ordered, and lines were drawn on the white sheet of Perspex (like in Xiangqi, play is on the intersections of the lines in Korean chess).

Palaces drawn on the board, and to emphasise them, I added two 'taegeuk' to the centre of the palaces.

Semi-opaque sheet of Perspex glued top of it, and the lines come through clear enough to play on.

So all that remains is to add the pieces!

Even though it's certainly not the most elaborate board I ever made, its simplicity and how well it matches the pieces make me rather pleased with this attempt.