Games of the Future – 3D Printed Chess Set

Chess is one of those timeless games that everyone in the world knows of and we will still remember Chess 1000 years from now. I taught myself how to play chess back in middle school and have played casually off and on since then. Oddly enough, every cheapo chess set that I bought eventually became lost in a move or their pieces scattered to the far corners of my home. I recently got the itch to play again and decided to make my own set using my Da Vinci Mini 3D printer.

Of course finding the right chess set for me was half of the journey. I eventually decided on using a set from Thingiverse.com; the Bauhaus Model I 1922 chess set. This set was inspired by Josef Hartwig’s Model I chess set from 1922. I loved the minimalist look of the pieces and thought that it would be the perfect set for me. However, there is a huge selection of differnt chess sets on Thingiverse ranging from a Pokemon Chess Set to sets that have been 3D sculpted in virtual reality! I downloaded the Bauhaus set and set off to the printer.

Printing this chess set took upwards of 18 hours to print, and about $10 worth of filament. Not bad for a chess set! Unfortunately, I only had one roll of neon green filament , which meant that I would have to paint one set to set the two sides apart. This neon green filiment did give the set a futurstic feel to a traditonal chess set, so I decided to paint one players pieces white and leave the other set green. Before using the white spray paint, I first applied a 2 – 3 coats of spray primer. The primer would act as a bonding agent for the paint to stick to, as well as helping smooth out each piece. After they were dry, I gave each piece three coats of the white spray paint. If you are following along to make your own chess set, any kind of spray paint that says it will stick to plastic will work; I use Rustoleum on the majority of my projects and it has worked out pretty well.

The White Army, ready for battle!

After the white paint had dried, I then hit each piece with a healthy coat of satin sealer. This is where things took a little bit of a turn. For whatever reason, the sealer decided to strip away some of the white paint layers until the original neon green shown through. What might have happened is that I was using a different brand of sealer than the spray paint (can’t quite remember which brand) and the different brands may have been completely compatible. The pure white spray paint probably didn’t help either. What ever the cause, the white side of the chess set was complete and it was ready to play!