Two Chess teaching sets. Aids new players.

If You find this design useful, Please consider sharing a Make or leaving a comment. It's always good to see my efforts in use by others out there and it often inspires me to make improvements where I can. Without feedback I just draw a line under a design and move on to new projects.

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Chess set. Two Full sets of pieces, One small and One Large competition board sized (obviously only one Pawn, Queen, King, Rook, Bishop and Knight in each set so they need printing in multiples). 

There was an error on the first version of the knight. I spotted it quickly and replaced it with a new (corrected) version of the knight. I named it V2 to avoid confusion for anyone who may have downloaded the earlier version previously.

I have struggled teaching people chess at times over the years and figured this set would make an ideal helper for new starters.

Each piece has it's basic moves printed on the base at both the front and rear faces. The name of each piece is also added to the remaining sides of the base.

There are 2 sets here. An explanation of differences will be at the end of this text.

On All pieces I used a direction arrow in the form of ^ along with the number of places that piece can (or must) move. So a rook for example, has the numbers 1 - 7 (counting the first square it moves to as the first square) along with arrows for up, down ,left and right, while a pawn only has the number 1 as it can only move one square.

Trying to keep things legible while also simple meant I had to cut a few corners but the info on each piece still conveys enough to be useful for a new player.

The Knight shows the number 3 (as it theoretically moves 3 squares) and must obviously use all 3 in a move. but there was no room to cover 1 left, 2 up. one right, two down, one down two left etc. so I showed just one option (2 right one down). Not ideal, but better than nothing at all.

The pawn shows up/forward (obviously), but I also added the diagonals for attack moves.

Showing en passant wasn't an option so the king shows only regular directions and the number 1.

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The small set pieces have a 20mm square base and fit a small board (boards with approximately 1 inch squares). If you prefer this set and want to use it on a board with 2-2.5 inch squares? I would advise resizing the pieces up to 180-200 percent (giving you around a 40mm base).

The second set (the FIDE size set) is sized to roughly follow Fide rules in their dimensions for use on the 2 to 2.5 inch squares of a competition board.  If you want to use this set on a smaller board with one inch squares? you would have to scale them down by around 50 percent.

The board created and supplied here has 55mm squares. 

Fide rules dictate that the King is always higher than a Queen (I dont make the rules here, so nothing sexist at my end). 

I kept the bases wide so they are easy to see. Dropping the actual pieces into the base to keep the information bases made for a distinct aesthetic style to these pieces. I quite like them and they still retain legitimate Fide chess piece heights. Keeping those bases uniform did make the pawn bases look a little oversized and would actually make them fail the FIDE rules, but those rules only allow Staunton Chess sets anyway and all these pieces are already a long way from the Staunton style.

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The board.

The board itself is now complete and uploaded. There are 3 different pieces that make everything needed for a full board.

corner - 2 white and 2 black

outer side - 12 white and 12 black

central squares - 18 white and 18 black

Connectors for the board come in 3 variants. The first 2 are designed with a raised bit in the middle to put a small gap between the squares of a finished board. They give it a different look without sacrificing functionality in any way. Of those 2, one is a more snug fit, the other has the wings slightly shortened and lowered. Try both and see which fits best for you. 

The third is designed for a regular board look. You may prefer not to bother at all with the connectors if doing the no gap board. It would save a lot of printing and be a simple thing to glue together or mount to a piece of board. Part of the reason for this being designed as it is though, was to allow you to put the board together in a way that allowed for not having it permanently fixed together. If you don't glue all the connectors it can be broken down in whatever way suits your needs..

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Fide rules on sizes at the time of writing for those interested in my designs restrictions.

Recommended height of FIDE official pieces is as follows: -

King – 9.5 cm,

Queen – 8.5 cm, 

Bishop – 7 cm, 

Knight – 6 cm, 

Rook – 5.5 cm and

Pawn – 5 cm. 

The diameter of the piece's base should measure 40-50% of its height. These dimensions may differ up to 10% from the above recommendation, but the order (e.g. King is higher than Queen etc.) must be kept.

I would love some feedback on these sets as they took way too long to create and even one comment would make it worthwhile having created them.

For printing, most will not need support. The knight however will definitely need support.

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Category: Chess