Tom Watson wrote:

I think that the color is only part of the design thinking. I like
pieces with some heft to them. Now, the bottoms could be hollowed and
filled with glued in metal (I think that molten lead would char the
wood), so maybe that makes the heft thing go away.

Molten lead *will* char the wood, but probably not enough to matter. That's
what I do to weight my son's Jummywood Derby cars. It works fine. I made
a little crucible out of some scrap copper, with a pointy pouring spout on
one end. It's a bit of work to juggle everything so you don't pour molten
lead on yourself. That smarts. DAMHIKT.

It flows at a relatively low temperature though, and if you get the amount
of drop just right, it will still be liquid, but will have cooled almost to
the point of being solid again by the time it hits the wood. The trick is
to pour a little, let it cool, pour a little more... If you fill it to the
top in one shot, the lump of lead will stay hot longer, and have more time
to char the wood fibers.

turns and holds detail. See, there's another thing - the wood needs
to be able to hold some pretty fine detail without a lot of the small
stuff breaking off later.

True. Something with closed pores and tight grain would be in order, I
suppose. Maple would probably work. Walnut might be iffy. I guess a
cheating man could make the whole set out of maple, and then "ebonize" the
black pieces. Lots of those $BIGNUM House of Staunton sets at the cheaper
end of the extremely expensive spectrum are ebonized in that fashion. I
seem to recall that you don't get better until you're in for a grand or so.

Here's the set that I'm using for a model:

Yours are a little bigger and a little nicer than mine, but they're both
really quite extraordinarly excellent, I must say. Damn good looking for
plastic.

Thanks for turning me onto them back when. I've since purchased three sets.

The last chessboard that I made was knocked up from cherry and maple
ply, with a walnut border:

http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/page31.htm

Spiffy. I don't have any pictures of mine yet. Never did get around to
taking any. The board didn't come out quite right, but it's close enough
to play on. I'm going to do it all again, and get it right this time,
applying lessons learned. Probably once more in walnut/soft maple with a
walnut frame.

I'm thinking about playing with my scroll saw too. I haven't tried this on
a large scale yet, but I've done some neat stuff by clamping two pieces
together and cutting curvy stuff through the middle, then swapping pieces
and gluing back together. I'm planning to do that for my box. I guess it
will pretty much demand mitered corners to look right, so I have to think
about doing splines or something to reinforce them. Good project when
spring finally gets around to showing up.

I like the look of the black and white men on the wood board.

I do too, but wood doesn't come in black and white unless you paint it.
Even ebony (all the ebony I've seen anyway) isn't really quite black.
White is easier. Lots of woods are pretty close to white. I guess holly
is *really* close to white, but I think my grandpa would get ****ed off at
me if I went down and cut down his holly trees.

Ever work with holly? I never have. It might be worth going down there and
lopping off a few fat branches toward the back. He'd never notice.

Mike Hide would be the man to talk to about carving the Knights. His
carving work is extraordinary, whereas mine is extra-ordinary.

Mine just flat sucks. I get what you're saying about breaking it down into
smaller objectives, but my problem is when something chips off and I have
to start the damn thing all over again. That's why I like working in clay
better.

As you said, these particular plastic men look better than any pieces
that I've ever owned, so, if I screw up - we'll always have Plastic.

Yeah, if only these were wood, I wouldn't even think about trying to make my
own. I'll bet their more exotic wood sets look this good too. Some of the
detail is astonishing. Then again, so are the prices.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/