Chessboard hobby project - Part IV

If you didn't follow this subject I recommend reading the previous 3 posts dedicated to this project (you can find them in the archive spread out throughout the past months).

So, finally, after almost two months without any progress, just a few days before Christmas, the welder (RO - sudorul, IT - il saldatore) managed to find a few free hours and came by and yes, you guessed it, the flipping granite chessboard table is almost ready! The entire rotating mechanism and all the metal parts are completed and I am almost at the end with this long-time project.

All that needs to be done now is two small granite borders (I have to glue them with a special glue over the metallic holder of the table) and the paint :D - the red-metallic colour you see now is just a thing to protect the metal from corrosion & rust - so don't worry, it will look better, the only fact is that I can't paint it with the low temperature that we have these days because the paint won't last...

Anyhow, enjoy the images & please let me know what you think about it.

Chessboard hobby project - Part III

Quick update on the project: last week I bought almost everything I needed to finish the chessboard; I still need some metallic linear U's (you'll see what I mean by this terminology at the end of the week) because I'll make the parts then with the welder (RO - sudor; IT - saldatore). Meanwhile, these are the metallic legs and some extra decorations I bought for the chessboard. I haven't decided it on the colour, but for sure I won't leave them black...







I also, finally, figured it out how to make the rotating mechanism, even if, unfortunately, it's not gonna' be the most aesthetic one; I will use 2 bearings, something like the ones you can see in the following image.



This should be the last update of the work in progress, I already spoke to the welder and by the end of the week I hope to show you all the final result. Wish me luck!

Chessboard hobby project - Part II

Even if the progress is minor at this point, I wanted to keep you up to date with the granite chessboard project. About two weeks ago I managed to glue the squares on the big surface and left them for a few days for the glue to dry. It was quite tricky because I needed to level carefully the squares and to keep the 90° angle and the strait line between the squares... I didn't do a perfect job but it works... Now you can see more clearly what I meant when I said the chessboard will have to sides: on one side you have the chessboard and on the other side it's a normal granite table. I still have to fully figure out how to create the rotation mechanism and to buy the metallic elements to create the feet of the table. By the end of the week I hope the chessboard boarders will be ready (you can see a small ugly grey border along the squares - and I have to cut some granite lines and polish them to fill up that space) and that I will buy the metallic elements, and then I will just have to talk with the welder (Romanian: sudor, Italian: saldatore) to stick all of them together.

Another update is that I cut the leaf table and polished it on the borders. The bad news is that I also managed to scratch it and now I have to polish the entire surface...

I also prepared two new stencils (patterns) for other granite tables which I intend to create this autumn: a 3 and 4 leaf "trifolium".





Cheers!

Chessboard Hobby Project

Ok, here it is, my first blog post in English. Considering this subject goes over the Romanian frontiers and interests, I thought it may be a good idea writing it in English for those of you who are interested in the project.
Important to mention is that the idea came last year from my colleague Flaviano who suggested making a wooden chessboard, after which I took it to the next level and started the granite chessboard.

It’s not finished yet and it won’t be for another couple of weeks, but it’s starting to shape and that’s why I thought it might be ready for “show & tell”. Here’s how it went until now.

First I had to choose the granite materials and I decided for a Balmoral Red and a New Venetian Gold because of the small quantities I needed and the fact that I found some material scraps. Also, I had to choose another piece of granite on which the squares will be later on “glued” and initially I went for something grey, but then my brother had a great idea and partially because of the granite texture, partially because of the size, partially because of the needs, I finally decided for another piece of New Venetian Gold.



After this, the squares needed to be cut to size, more specific 8cm x 8cm thus resulting in a total of almost 70cm for each side of the chess board (borders included).






Once the squares were cut, they needed to be perfected on the corners and polished on the upside borders for a better design and this took a lot of time.




I hope that by the end of the week I will finish the borders surrounding the chess squares. Once that will be done, I will have to order the metallic table legs and that’s the tricky part, because the great idea behind this chessboard is that it can be flipped over and used as a chessboard or as a garden / balcony table for coffee, tea or anything you want.




I’ll keep you posted how it goes with the final details, meanwhile I leave you with a teaser from another project already on the roll and the invitation to leave your impressions. Cheers!