Victorian Crafts
HOW TO MAKE A SET OF CHESS-MEN OUT OF SPOOLS.
BY A. W. Roberts
A very good set of chess-men can be made out of empty spools by any boy who is handy with his penknife. It will be better, however, to also use a file. First sharpen both blades of your knife. Then from among your stock select sixteen spools of equal sizes. These are for the pawns, which are the easiest to make, as they are smaller and require less ornamentation than any of the other pieces. With your knife and file shape your pawn as in Fig. 1. The ornamental piece on the top is to be carved out of any soft white wood, such as pine or dog-wood, after which it is glued on to the pawn.
The next easiest pieces are the bishops, of which I have illustrated two styles, Figs. 2 and 2A. In both of these examples the round or rat-tail file is used to ornament the pedestals on which rest the bishop's book and cap. The original outlines of the spools are so nearly preserved in the figures that no further description will be needed.
The castles, or rooks, as they are sometimes called, are also easy to make, and in the game are next in value to the queens. There are four of these, and for them you will need four spools that have a thick body between the flanges. This thickness is taken advantage of when shaping out the castle, as shown in Fig. 3. The battlements on top of the castle are made out of the flanges of other spools, each one being cut out separately, and glued on to the top of the castle. The mason-work and embrasures can be carved, or drawn with ink.
We now come to the last three pieces-the knight, the king, and the queen-which will require all your skill and dexterity. For the four knights which are required in your set cut two spools in half, so as to make of them four bases on which to fasten the heads. Carve the heads out of soft wood in imitation of a horse's head.
Should the mane of the horse be beyond your ability, it can be drawn in with black ink. The eyes and nostrils can also be drawn in, but the general shape or outline of the piece must be that of a horse's head. The ears are carved out separately, and are glued on to the heads after they are shaped out.
To complete the set you need now two kings and two queens, and having had practice in making the others, you should have these look the best of all. In these pieces a great deal of skill can be displayed. Take Figs. 5 (a king) and 6 (a queen). The crowns are of separate pieces carved out of any wood that has a rich grain. The jewelry of the crowns can be painted in with brilliant colors, but in no other instance is it in good taste to use other colors than red and white, these being the authorized colors for chess-men.
Often, when painting in the jewels of the king's crown, I have used no other color than purple, and for the queen's crown blue. This variation of colors often helps young players to distinguish easily the king piece from the queen, and as all young people are fond of bright colors, I can see no very important rule in chess that is transgressed by making use of them.
After the parts are neatly and securely fastened together with glue, each piece should be thoroughly rubbed with very fine emery-paper. In case you have selected spools the wood of which shows a rich grain, or the tops of your pieces are of a rich-grained wood, it may be well to stain the red pieces with a rich and brilliant coloring matter, which, when thoroughly dry, should be gone over with a hard and transparent varnish. For the white pieces the natural color of the wood is retained, the grain being brought out by the varnish.
Should you desire to have your pieces approach in color those of ivory chess-men, you can not do better than to grind up some English vermilion in bleached shellac varnish, into which the pieces are dipped, and allowed to drain off. For the white pieces grind up Chinese white, and dip them; then suspend them, to allow all the superfluous varnish to drip off.
The number of pieces required in a set of chess-men is thirty-two, as follows : two kings, two queens, four castles, four bishops, four knights, and sixteen pawns, one half of each kind being red and the other half white.
I have seen cheap sets of chess-men painted red and black, but this is a bad arrangement, as the latter do not show well on the black squares of the board.
Source: Harper's Young People, 1884