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Gallery, Projects and General => Project Logs => Topic started by: Blurbillon on December 21, 2018, 01:46:06 PM

Title: Chess, anyone?
Post by: Blurbillon on December 21, 2018, 01:46:06 PM
One day I decided to make some hand turned chess pieces from tool steel. Maybe one day it will be a full set. Maybe. Oh yeah, that weird plastic rod in the pictures is actually a hair from my head.

Title: Re: Chess, anyone?
Post by: RussellT on December 22, 2018, 11:50:22 AM
Those are very small. :thumbup: :clap:

What size is the board going to be?  Will you need a microscope and micro manipulator to play?

Russell
Title: Re: Chess, anyone?
Post by: Blurbillon on December 22, 2018, 12:43:31 PM
The board would be 1mm x 1mm. The base of the king is 0.12mm and it's 0.3mm tall. Naturally that is the largest piece. The pawn being the smallest one is 0.2mm tall.

The set would be playable using a microscope and fine tipped tweezers.
Title: Re: Chess, anyone?
Post by: russ57 on December 22, 2018, 11:38:00 PM
Amazing!

More details please

Russ

Title: Re: Chess, anyone?
Post by: Blurbillon on December 23, 2018, 09:50:49 AM
The details are fairly simple. The steel needs to be hardened and tempered just right or the turning process won't work. Too soft and it turns to a mess with a poor surface finish, too hard and the extremely sharp edge of the graver will just go dull in an instant. Even when the steel is just right, you'll spend more time keeping the graver sharp than actually using it.

My microscope setup is very rudimentary and honestly I need to upgrade it at some point. I need to choose the lathe RPM so that the whole setup doesn't vibrate too much or otherwise I won't see what I'm doing. Ideally all of the components, the lathe, the motor and the microscope would be mounted on separate surfaces to eliminate as much vibration as possible. Now they're all mounted on a simple wooden board.