Golden xiangqi set

Xiangqi ('Chinese chess') is played on the intersection of lines rather than on the squares, as is the case for FIDE chess. Normally, a xiangqi board has lines, and play is on the points where the lines cross each other. I wanted to take this 'playing on the points' a bit further, and create a board which has no lines, just the points. My idea was to use gold-coloured drawing pins for these points, and to get a set of playing pieces to fit these drawing pins.

Getting a set of basic wooden pieces is easy enough ...

... and a specialised drill bit allowed me to 'hollow out' the underside of the pieces, such that they fit snugly over a drawing pin.

As the drawing pins are gold-coloured, I decided to paint the pieces gold as well.

On to creating the board. I had a nice piece of wood in the shed, which would work well with the gold drawing pins.

So here's the basic board, with drawing pins on all the points:

You may have noticed the gold-coloured wire in the picture above. I did say I wouldn't be having lines on the board, didn't I? What I meant there was not having any horizontal or vertical lines, but it is necessary to indicate the palaces and for that, I used that gold-coloured wire. I also highlighted the paths of the elephants/ministers with wire. First of all, doing that essentially indicates where the river is. Secondly, I have seen a xiangqi board where the moves of the elephants/ministers are indicated by lines, so there is precedence, although it's not normally part of a xiangqi board. And this is then what the completed board looks like:

The pieces fit well, I think!

Judge for yourself, but I am quite please with this 'golden' xiangqi set.