My little brother loves playing chess. I taught him to play, and unfortunately, I regret to say that he now beats me many a time, or at least gives me a run for my money. For my brother’s birthday, I decided to make him a chess set, challenging myself to improve my CAD design skills with a simple but elegant creation of chess pieces. After doing some research on standard chess dimensions, I made a CAD of some chess pieces and then 3D printed and spray-painted them. I also used a laser cutter to engrave a chess board.
Before the project, I had recently learned to use a laser cutter and 3D printer, and I wanted to do something quick and fun to put those skills to the test. I also had learned how to CAD not too long before that, and wanted to give myself the challenge of creating CAD of chess pieces from scratch. I knew that I could have easily found CAD online of the pieces, or, for that matter, simply bought my little brother a chess set in much less time, but that wasn't the point of the process. I wanted to stumble for myself into this new world of rapid prototyping that I was quickly growing passionate about, and give my brother a personalized gift that would share that love.
For most of the chess pieces, I was able to use my graphic design skills to sketch out profiles in Illustrator, convert this to a DXF, add it to Solidworks, and simply revolve the profile to create the piece. The knight, however, proved especially tricky. I could not rely on my 2D crutch as a mere revolution would look odd; I needed to think in the world of 3D. It was a challenge for me, but a challenge I welcomed. I tried several methods, scanning tutorials to see if I could get inspiration, and finally stumbled across the idea of lofting. I made several cross-sections that I then lofted together to follow a contour of the knight piece. This acquired skill is something I was proud of, and proved useful in other projects later on, such as when I was designing the Tigris bathroom collection and needed to create various lofts to model the pieces.
My brother was quite happy with the chess set, and still uses it to this day.
Before the project, I had recently learned to use a laser cutter and 3D printer, and I wanted to do something quick and fun to put those skills to the test. I also had learned how to CAD not too long before that, and wanted to give myself the challenge of creating CAD of chess pieces from scratch. I knew that I could have easily found CAD online of the pieces, or, for that matter, simply bought my little brother a chess set in much less time, but that wasn't the point of the process. I wanted to stumble for myself into this new world of rapid prototyping that I was quickly growing passionate about, and give my brother a personalized gift that would share that love.
For most of the chess pieces, I was able to use my graphic design skills to sketch out profiles in Illustrator, convert this to a DXF, add it to Solidworks, and simply revolve the profile to create the piece. The knight, however, proved especially tricky. I could not rely on my 2D crutch as a mere revolution would look odd; I needed to think in the world of 3D. It was a challenge for me, but a challenge I welcomed. I tried several methods, scanning tutorials to see if I could get inspiration, and finally stumbled across the idea of lofting. I made several cross-sections that I then lofted together to follow a contour of the knight piece. This acquired skill is something I was proud of, and proved useful in other projects later on, such as when I was designing the Tigris bathroom collection and needed to create various lofts to model the pieces.
My brother was quite happy with the chess set, and still uses it to this day.
