My idea was to turn the pieces of white ash and black walnut. I had scored a ton of rough cut wood, which was quite ugly looking. I would turn the pieces into cylinders on the larger lathe to make sure the wood was sound, and to look at the grain. I would then cut them down into the sizes I needed. I also had to make two chess chucks. One for the back row and one for the pawns, since the needed a smaller base. I had some scrap maple/red oak from a project I had prior, so I used the cut up chunks and created the chucks:
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I then tossed a hunk of wood into the regular jaw chuck and turned and finished the bottom of the piece first. In these examples, I am working on a pawn:
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Once I have done the bottom, I drill the appropriate size hole to fit the chess chuck, and drill a smaller hole for the wood screw to hold the chess piece firmly in the chuck. Once I have done that, I start turning the rest of the chess piece
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And that's about it.
To weigh the piece down, I crush some led bullet projectiles to fit the cavity left behind by the forstner bit and glue it in with epoxy. I then cut a disc of green self-adhesive felt and cover the bottom with that.
Dan