Optimum chess set

In 1966 the American artist Lanier Graham designed his "MoMA chess set". It is a very nice and minimalistic design. I think it is a great inspiration for a chess set, that is not so much an art piece, but more of a practical everymans design.

As you will see, we need a couple of improvements before we have the optimum chess set.

The first thing is the proportions. The Lanier king is very thin and tall, which is not that practical for a chess piece. The proportions of the optimum king is more like those of a normal chess king.

This is a minor detail though, as the design is very flexible. Height and width is decoupled in the cut plans, so you really can increase or decrease the height as you please.

The second thing is more problematic, it is about the manufacturing. Most of the Lanier design is easy to make with simple woodworking tools. But the cut that separates the two knights is very challenging. In the optimum design the cuts that separate the knights and bishops are easy to make.

Pay close attention to the cut lines for the optimum pieces. The bevel cut goes a smidgen past the straight cut. That makes the bishops more distinctive.

If you want to make the optimum pieces in wood, you need one or two boards in the type of wood that you like. If you have two boards, they should be the same thickness. Draw the cut lines on the wood. The width of the pieces should match the thickness of the boards. There are a number of ways to plan the cuts.

Note that with the bottom plan you can use dowel rods instead of boards.

Also note that the cut plans are possible layouts for a box that can hold the pieces.

It is not difficult to just use a pencil and a square to draw up the cut lines. You will not go wrong if you follow these proportions:

Alternatively, here are some cut plans that can be printed out:

32 mm

25 mm

19 mm

In case you have a 3D-printer, you might be interested in these STL files: