Chess pieces made from nuts and bolts

Posted by Cory Doctorow, March 23, 2009 4:23 PM |
Makeblog has the story of Julia Suits's stupendous hardware-store chessmen made from nuts, bolts and flanges. I like chess sets more than I like chess -- I've always made them out of bits and pieces, but it never occurred to me to try nuts and bolts (though we've blogged a similar set before, I think this one's nicer).

Headed toward the light-bulb aisle in my local hardware store a few years ago,I stopped to admire the bins of nuts,bolts and the like. This is not unusual for me who likens this kind of scene to a candy store. I love metal,and have cast and welded all types as a sculpture major in graduate school. When I saw the little bin containing two different types of castle nuts,I immediately thought of rooks. At the time my three sons and I hosted a weekly chess club,so chess was on my mind a lot. With my boys in tow,I returned with graph paper and we computed what sorts of bits we might want (we didn't know for sure) for each type of piece and how many in total. An hour later, after poring over numerous bins and waiting for the clerk to saw the threaded rod into measured lengths (for kings, rooks,and bishops), we went home with about fifteen pounds of loot, including spray paint for the black pieces. We created a set not far different from what is pictured here. Since then we've added washers to some and added a flanged hex nut to each of the bases to make the set uniform and even more stable. The hardware chessmen were a huge hit and the other boys built their own sets.
Hardware store chessmen
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Discussion

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#1 posted by kaosmonkey, March 23, 2009 4:35 PM

"We created a set not far different from what is pictured here."

So... who made the set in the photo?

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#2 posted by Tensegrity, March 23, 2009 4:47 PM

Cool! And make the board from magnetic sheet and you got a sweet travel set (other than the fact that it weighs a ton).

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#3 posted by arbitraryaardvark, March 23, 2009 4:56 PM

Joe Biden tells a story about being the shy poor kid invited to a big dance, but he didn't have cufflinks. So his mom got him some nuts and bolts to use, and told him, if teased about it, which he was, to just say that it's the latest fashion. He now has a set in gold.

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#4 posted by Lady Katey, March 23, 2009 5:03 PM

Kaosmonkey, did you stop reading after that sentance? The OP and his sons created the set pictured. This is the evolved version of their first set.

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#5 posted by nixiebunny, March 23, 2009 5:17 PM

Another guy made one using coaxial adapters. It's even better looking, but of course costs about 1000x the nut-and-bolt version...

http://leapsecond.com/pages/chess/

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#6 posted by eustace, March 23, 2009 7:19 PM

You could make a travel set just by using smaller sizes of hardware. Then it would only weigh half a ton. :)

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#8 posted by InsertFingerHere, March 23, 2009 7:34 PM

I would spray them with something so they don't tarnish. Looks lovely though.

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#9 posted by WhyAge, March 23, 2009 11:13 PM

Delightful.
Here's what I've learned from sorting a big pile of nuts and bolts: http://www.yairharel.com/2009/03/22/10-lessons-learned-from-sorting-screws/

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#10 posted by codereduk, March 24, 2009 2:15 AM

I bet that's a person who could make some bookshelves for less than $10,000.

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#11 posted by mad gohan, March 24, 2009 6:15 AM

Great idea...unfortunately it was thought of around forty years ago or more. A co-worker was throwing out a bunch of stuff in the dumpster at work and I saved a set just like this, the pieces were in a generic box wrapped in newspaper from the early seventies.

Every time I have visitors they fall in love with it want a set.

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#12 posted by leesa, March 24, 2009 7:49 AM

In fact, my dad designed a chess set made out of 428 lamp parts in the 1968. here's a link:
http://www.chilltownonline.com/chess

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#14 posted by Al_Putnam, March 24, 2009 8:46 AM

How is the knight made? I studied the picture awhile, and read the discussion, but did not really see/understand the knight.

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#15 posted by Brett Burton, March 24, 2009 9:50 AM

I once had a girlfriend who owned a set like this. We played one night and 3/4 through our first game, I learned I had confused the Queen and King. For some reason she had made the King taller than the Queen. I argued that we should restart and she accused me of being a bad sport. We got into a huge fight and never played chess again. The relationship went downhill from there. Home-made hardware store chess sets? No thanks.

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#16 posted by j suits, March 24, 2009 11:18 AM

Al, The knight pictured is made up of a 2" long x 1/2" diam hex bolt. First,towards the bolt head, is threaded a butterfly nut, wings upward (representing saddle, or horse neck/head and haunches/tail); followed with an externally toothed washer and then the flanged hex nut for the base. Needless to say, possibilities for improv are endless with all the bits and pieces out there in the world.

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#17 posted by j suits, March 24, 2009 11:21 AM

Also,if you keep following the links you'll get to the Flickr stream and see the pieces up close and exploded views, too.

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#18 posted by kaosmonkey, March 24, 2009 11:25 AM

#4, I sure did. Every day my attention span gets a little shorter. What was I saying?

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#20 posted by Strophe, March 24, 2009 1:16 PM

Tick: Ah ha-ha, chess. The ancient contest of wits. Two opponents: mano a mano. Braino a braino. And look: magnets for ease of travel. You could play chess on the moon.

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#21 posted by shannou, March 24, 2009 1:54 PM

I made a chess set out of nuts and bolts for a friend in high school (about 15 years ago.) Although I don't remember the source, I did find a variation from seven years ago in Boys' Life magazine: http://boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/1650/tool-chess/

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#22 posted by dozerdude, March 24, 2009 4:37 PM

My friend had a set like this around 1972.

Still, a cool project.

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