Chess Board Using Laser Cutter
These are the materials / tools needed for this project.1) Access to a laser cutter - There are a handful of that can laser cut parts for you. I happened to have access to a laser cutter for this project, so I laser cut it myself. However, since most people probably don't have access to such expensive and specialized equipment, I am not going to fixate on the actual laser cutting process - I will only cover the essentials.2 ) Access to an online design software - I used to design the chess pieces. Feel free to use whichever software you want, or even just download my designs instantly on the next step.3) Wood - If you are laser cutting this yourself, get a few sheets of and cut them to fit inside of the laser cutter you are using. You can also experiment with other materials, such as acrylic.4) Wood Markers - I used a couple of to color the faces of the chess pieces. Not required. I believe that designs you use to laser cut, 3D print, etc should be your own.
As such, I am not going to guide you point by point on how to create the designs for a chess set. I will tell you the basic process I took, and you can edit it to best suit your needs.First of all, figure out how thick the wood you are using is. Use this information to make 2 rectangles - the base, and the actual chess board. The chess board should fit inside the base, with a gap the size of the thickness of the wood on all sides.Now, using the 'add anchor point' tool make 4 indentions in the base and 4 extrusions of the base size in the chess board.
The extrusions should be as large as the base if you line them up, and the intrusions on the base should be as small as the chess board if you line them up.Make 4 walls that have an intrusion on one of the long edge and an extrusion on the oppose edge. The extrusion will fit into the base and the intrusion will hold the chess board. Use a similar style of extrusions / intrusions to connect the 4 walls.Finally, make alternating black and white tiles on the chess board. There should be 64 in total. To design the chess pieces, I simply Googled images of chess pieces and followed the design style of one set I liked.
I made all of the different pieces (pawns, knights, bishops, rooks, queens, kings) and then duplicated them so I would have enough for 2 sides (black and white) and a full chess set.Then make a trapezoid that is the same length as the chess pieces you designed. 'Cut out' a rectangle in the center of both the pieces and the trapezoid (preferably before duplicating) that is slightly larger than the thickness of the wood you are using. This will help the pieces slot together. Make 32 of these trapezoids total (one per piece). Once you are done, make sure that you have followed all of the rules required by the online laser cutting service or your own laser cutting software.
I had to make the borders of all of the pieces to cut out red and size 0.05 so the laser would know to cut them out, and all of the pieces that are black, well, black so that the laser cutter would know to etch them.If you are using an online laser cutting service, great, simply send them whatever files they need. Otherwise, make sure to align your plywood in the laser cutter, make sure the laser is the proper distance from the wood, configure all of the settings in your chosen software, and laser away.
File name File size Mime type Downloads Download Laser Cut Chess Board with Compass Rose Inlay.zip ×. The chess board is designed for material with a thickness of 4mm, i used plywood. And that is all you need except for wood glue. Because of the dimensions of the smallest laser cutter available at the FabLab (300mm/600mm) you'll need 8 plates of material.
Chess Board Using Laser Cutter Machine
Make sure to not let any of the pieces catch on fire for sustained amounts of time. Wear eyewear if your laser cutter doesn't have proper protection.
We now need to add the final touches to our chess set. Take some wood markers (designed for use on furniture) and use them to make sure both sides of each chess piece are the same color (no white and black pieces!). I also used a light wood marker on the chess board to make sure that the etched squares were as nice as possible.Why did I have to do this? I really wanted to have a nice wooden feel to this chess board, and decided to 'color' the pieces by etching the black pieces black. I forgot that the pieces wouldn't be etched on the other side. Using a marker helped both of the sides be the same color.
Chess Board Using Laser Cutter Tool
The first picture is a good comparison - the knight on the right has marker, and the one on the left doesn't (the dark spots were burn marks). Star ocean 2 shrine park.