'Westernised' xiangqi set

In case you're not familiar with xiangqi (Chinese chess), it differs from 'Western' chess in several ways, two of which are that it's played on the intersections rather than the squares, and that it uses discs with Chinese characters rather than three-dimensional pieces (there are more differences; I'll come to those). You can see a set with a board I made years and years ago here.

Because it takes some time to become familiar with the Chinese characters, xiangqi is sometimes regarded as not being very accessible to non-Chinese people. In order to remedy that, there have been attempts to 'Westernise' the game by the use of three-dimensional pieces, and play on the squares of a board rather than the intersections. My aim was to create a full set (board and pieces) along those lines, but limiting myself entirely to 'Staunton-style' pieces. Because xiangqi has a piece that does not occur in 'Western' chess, the cannon, that creates a unique challenge ...

But first the board! Got myself some adhesive vinyl with a chequerboard pattern, and cut off a 9x10 piece. Rectangular piece of plywood, spray-painted silver, formed the basis of the board.

Xiangqi has palaces (which limit the movement of the general = king) and a river (which some pieces can't cross), and I decided to implement those with wooden dowels, also spray-painted silver.

So that completes the basic board! In case you're wondering why it has such wide margins, bear with me; all will be revealed ...

On to the pieces. Because xiangqi has two advisors (one on either side of the general=king), which are basically the Western queens (although they're far less powerful), I got myself two full sets of plastic Staunton pieces. That would give me the extra queens I needed for the two advisors on both sides. But, as I mentioned, xiangqi also has cannons, which have no equivalent in Western chess. That meant thinking cap time, because I definitely did not want to use some random plastic cannons; I really wanted to have the full set 'Staunton'-style. After some thinking, I came up with the following idea: take the extra rooks, saw off the crenellations, saw the tops off some pawns (I had plenty of surplus pawns, given that xiangqi only has five pawns on each side) and glue these on top of the de-crenellated rooks, thereby creating a pile of cannon balls on a base! Given that the movement of the cannon is identical to a rook, it also makes sense to have a bit of rook in the cannon.

I'm quite pleased with having created clearly recognisable cannons, without using anything that's not already part of a Staunton set.

Following this, I still had quite some surplus pieces (few pawns, two kings, and several knights and bishops), so I decided to saw some of those in half ...

... and glue these half-pieces to the edges of the board, making them appear half-embedded. That's why the edges were so wide!

Pieces done, board complete, let's put the pieces on the board.

See what you think, but I'm really pleased with how it all came out and together. Palaces and river are clearly demarcated, and the cannons are immediately recognisable. And the embedded half-pieces add something to the whole.

As I said before, it remains weird to see a xiangqi set with anything other than discs with Chinese characters. But seeing that set on squares rather than intersections makes it doubly weird. Judge for yourself; I'm very happy with the set, though!