Skirted Chess Peices

[Kirbstone]

I suppose this comes under the heading 'Hobbbies', but five thousand years ago while I was seeking to amuse myself in the evenings in Germany I got hold of the moulds for a 'Roman' chess set and cast the figures in low-fusing metal, painted them up to look 'Pewter' for black and 'Brass' for white. I bought the board, as my marquetry wouldn't match that standard and it was cheap, being a 'second'.

Rs Chess Set Complete.jpg

Rs Black Chess Peices.jpg

Rs White Chess Peices.jpg

The little figures are all in skirted Roman battle dress and rather splendid as a set. Pity I've no-one 'live' to play against. I play against Gary 'Gummug' or 'Mugs-and-such' on line, but that's different.

Tom K.

[couyalair]

Very nice!
What luck to get hold of the moulds.

Martin

[Since1982]

Kirb said: I suppose this comes under the heading 'Hobbbies', but five thousand years ago while I was seeking to amuse myself in the evenings in Germany

WOW, you're really old, I thought I was old at 70...how WAS the last 5,000 years (black plague etc.) in general??

[Kirbstone]

Don't remember much. At this latitude we were deep frozen under the ice for a long time. Reminds me of the joke about 'Otzi', the Ice man, found intact at the edge of thawing ice up in the Austrian/Italian Tyrol. (He's still deep-frozen and carefully preserved, by the way).
Three experts examined him to try to determine just how old he was. The Russian expert reported that they took hair, skin & nail samples and ran tests on them at Bailonkur Scientific & Space centre. 'We would say, about 4,900 years old', he said.
Then the American expert said that they had run probes into his stomach , abdomen and great bowel to extract samples of what he had eaten & ran tests on those...'We would guess something in the region of 4,800-5,000 years old, give or take'.
Then the German guy piped up and said that they had worked ceaslessly and very exhaustively on him and came up with 'Vier-tausend Neun-hundert, funf-und Achtzig yearrss, four months and two dayss.....
Both the others stared at him open mouthed and asked how he could possibly come up with such an accurate figure ?

'At zis stage I am not prepared to reveal ou-er messods, but vee eventually got him to talk!!!'

The actual date of the casting of the skirted chess peices was towards the end of the 2nd Millennium A.D.......about 1993, but it now seems a long time ago.
The 'Bastelstube' or hobbies shop offered the hire of moulds for several styles of chess pieces, e.g. Viking, Chinese &c., but I considered the Roman set the most elegant and impressive, so I opted for them. They sold the metal in ingots with melting down and pouring instructions, also the metallic spray paint &c.

Tom K.

[Mugs-n-such]

I haven't been here for awhile because I've been busy on other sites (mainly chess.com and unexplained-mysteries.com), but I'm impressed that you made your own chess set. Many many years ago I started to make a chess set out of clay (the kind you fire in a kiln) at a rec center but for some reason I stopped going there and the set never got completed. Anyway, I really like that set, it is really cool!

[Kirbstone]

Gary,
Nice to hear from you here. My MM ran the Arts & Crafts facility at our local Hole-in-the-Wall Gangcamp, a Paul Newman foundation providing holiday fun for seriously ill children, where she did pottery with the kids and there was a mighty kiln for cooking he stuff. I modelled ceramic chess pieces, fired and glazed them, but I found consistency of form and size difficult to achieve. The real nuisance was that they were very breakable, and at least in our domestic situation not very durable, so they're not 'on display' anymore.
The metal chesspieces on the other hand are very tough and have survived nearly 20 years undamaged. I'm sure the moulds and the metal &c would be available in the U.S. also.

Tom.

[Mugs-n-such]

I may have to look into that. I think that would be a lot of fun to build and paint. A friend of mine bought me a radio kit, lo, 6 years ago, and I have yet to finish it. So I'm going to TRY and finish it this summer. I've never really soldered before, but I don't think it will be that hard to learn. It was always a dream of mine to build my own car, but now because of my physical condition, I imagine that dream will forever go unfulfilled. (A real car I mean.) But, as someone we all know said, "What is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and lose his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" I don't mean to preach, just pointing out if we have a roof over our heads and food on the table and clean water to drink and even any money in the bank, we're probably better off than 70% or so of the rest of the world.
As I re-read this post I thought, "wow, how did I get into all that from talking about chess sets?" and I think I meant, I'm not looking for pity because of my disability, though I do appreciate the physical therapy I get from the VA hospital.
P.S.: The rec center I mentioned in my previous post was a rec center/hobby center for veterans at the VA hospital, but it was discontinued because of funding cuts.

[crfriend]

It's good to read you again, Gary. Hopefully things are going well, or, at the very least, tolerably.

You should enjoy the radio kit, but should practise soldering on things that aren't critical. For instance, try soldering splices in wires for starters; what you're after is a nice smooth shiny surface on the solder joint -- if it's dull you've probably made a "cold joint" which will fail in the future. Also, if you're working with PC (Printed Circuit, not "Personal Computer") boards you'll want a fairly low-wattage iron, possibly with a sharp tip depending on how tight the components and traces are placed. What kind of radio is it? I greatly enjoy shortwave even to this day.

Please publish the results of the build, and interesting things that you may overhear!

[Mugs-n-such]

Thanks crfriend. My call sign is KD0EKE, but I've never been on the air yet with it, part of it is too many brands in the fire. I hope to post here tomorrow or the next day, I'll go home and look at it, it's still in a box in my living room. Thanks for the advice on soldering, my friend Doug said the same thing about making sure the joint is shiny. Well, I could rant and rave some more, but I need to get something to eat pretty soon!
P.S. I am now the proud owner of two kilts, a Wallace, and I forget the other one, but it's gray and black tartan. One from EdinburghKiltCo and one from Heritage of Scotland. Cheap, but I like 'em.
To answer your question, crfriend, the box says "MFJ Enterprises". It's a shortwave, but a receiver only, not a transceiver, I have yet to buy (or build) a good transceiver. I have a small "walkie" transceiver, but I haven't even picked up any other hams on it yet.