While we reflect on outdoor chess boards, we imagine an enormous scaled board piece with a massive checkerboard, but there’s no reason not to create an outdoor chess game to fit your own large or small backyard. We’ve taken a variety of steps to suit almost any area, and I’m sure you can imagine how good it looks in your own outer space in the garden, in the patio, or even next to the pool. In this guide, I will describe how to make outdoor chess pieces.
- The entire thing is 1m x 1m large and is made of concrete pavement blocks.
- Estimated time: 8 working hours. This is a one-day / week project.
- Cost estimate: $ 40
- It is a simple project that requires only basic tools and a little patience.
Table of Contents
How to Make Outdoor Chess Pieces
Step #1: Materials used
The materials needed for your outdoor chess pieces are as follows:
- 1x bag of cement (20 kg) for making concrete – although only 1/4 bag is used.
- 4x concrete pavement side blocks, each 1 m long.
- 64 + Concrete paving blocks (sure extra to make sure)
- 1 x bag of granite gravel.
- The sand came free.
Tools used
- Shovel
- Spirit Level
- A piece of wood for compacting clay/sand.
- A couple of buckets
- One wheelbarrow
Step #2: Create a chessboard
Preparations
We cleaned the area of small pebbles and laid a plastic cloth of excavated dirt.
Got what we needed, prepared dry cement mixture (1 part cement, 4.5 parts sand)
The hole
- Dig a hole in the ground 🙂 Keep it square and slightly larger than the actual board size.
- Once you’re done, get a heavily opaque object and compact the ground below.
- Dip into the side slab and check that it is level.
- Once all 4 sides are in place and level, add a little gravel to the bottom for better drainage. Compact it again.
Fill the hole
- Fill the hole with sand in thin layers—Re-compact the sand every inch or so.
- Check the height using real bricks.
- I thought it was good to water a little bit of sand in the process.
Step 3: Finish
- Finally, once the soil is nice and level, place the bricks one by one.
- Start with black at the bottom left corner.
- I used small wooden bricks to tap the concrete bricks gently. In the end, there was a small gap of a small inch on one side, so I filled it with leftover concrete.
- For the finish, we added some nice sand that filled the small gaps. The yard chess set that you will see on cruise ships, in hotels, in gardens, on college ledge campuses, and elsewhere is probably a 37-inch set.
- We also painted the black tiles a little more to make them look more attractive.
How To Make A DIY Outdoor Chess Set
Step 1: Cut four-by-four
How to use Chop saw to cut (Miter Saw)
To get started, clamp the wood to your work surface. Then, make your cut with a chop saw. One four by four should be enough to make half the pieces to need two pieces. Cut eight 4″ pieces for the pawns, two 9″ pieces for the knights, two 6 1/2″ pieces for the rooks, one 10″ piece for the queen, two 5″ pieces for the bishops, and one 11″ piece for the king.
Do it again with the second four-by-four. The yard chess set that you will see on cruise ships, in hotels, in gardens, on college ledge campuses, and elsewhere is probably a 37-inch set.
Step 2: Sand
How to use sand sandpaper
Sand everything ready except the Knights – we’ll get to that later.
Step 3: Build a pawn.
Use shorter (4″) pieces. You can leave them that way or follow this lead and add a cap to the fence – a little flare will work.
Glue everything with construction-grade hot glue. It’s designed to glaze hardwood flooring, so it’s strong and dries quickly, but it works like a little $20 glue gun from an expensive contractor hot glue gun.
To add a fence cap, simply select one of your choices and glue it. Make 16.
Step 4: Create rooks
How to use a Circular saw
The rook is the visible part of the castle. This part is our first piece with correction, meaning you can keep it fairly simple or practice a detailed task.
For the easy option, glue big fence post caps upside down on the peak of the 6 1/2″ four-by-four lengths. You can stop here and get a castle- DIY chess pieces without doing any more work.
Use a chisel to remove the wood strips, then sand until smooth. Secure the four-by-four with glue. Make four.
Step 5: Create Knights
Also known as a horse! This is the most complex of the pieces, as to be honest; there is no easy way to shape a four-legged horse. Once people know he is a knight, they will know he is a knight.
For those ready for a challenge, start with 9″ four-by-four pieces at the top, measure, and mark in 1 from both sides. You should measure 1/2 below the top of the left side and one below the right side. Connect the points on both sides and make two triangles.
Then, measure 3″ as well as 4″ down on the right side, and apply a speed square to spot a line next to the side of the four-by-four. Place a mark on a third mark 1″ in from the edging and 2 1/2″ down. Attach these three dots to shape a triangle. Then, place your circular saw to 25° along with the blade depth to 1 1/2″. Cut all along the side of the four-by-four, next to the top line.
To cut the bottom line, set the circular saw to 50° and the blade depth’s depth to 2 3/4. Sand if you deemed it necessary. Make four.
Step 6: Create bishops
To make a bishop, use a 4″ by 4″ length and a colonial post cap.
Adjust the circular sun to 45 ° and the depth of the blade to depth 2. Clamp the post cap, and then cut 2/4″ below the point. This makes an excellent diagonal of the bishop’s hat. It is important you sandpaper it, then superglue the post cap to the four by four.
Step 7: Create a queen
To make a queen, glue the post cap to the 10″ length of the four-by-four. Make two.
Step 8: Create a King
To make the king:
- Attach an inverted post cap to the fancy post cap (more detailed, more regular!) with glue.
- Make safe this “crown” on top of the 11″ four-by-four.
- Make two.
All your chess pieces are completed. Congratulations!
Frequently Asked Questions
What do the 16 pieces of chess say?
Thirty-two pieces in a standard chess set, 16 per side. These pieces are sometimes called chessmen, but most experienced players call their pieces “stuff.” The outdoor chess set rules govern how each piece is placed, how many squares each piece rotates, and whether any special moves are allowed there.
Chess pieces are made of which wood?
White chess pieces of wood are usually made of light wood like maple. Part of black wood is made from wood such as red sandalwood, rosewood, ebony, African padak wood, walnut, teak wood.
How tall should chess pieces be?
Most players choose a height of about 3.7575 inches (from 108 mm). The diameter of the king should be 40-50% of his height. The dimension of the extra pieces should be proportionate to the king. The pieces should be well balanced so that the center of their gravity is close to the board.
Read More: How to Get Good at Chess
Conclusion
To keep everything in the main position, finish with actual chess pieces. You can go for the matte finish, but the glossy finish for this project is good for this project.
Veronica is a Green Bay-based freelance writer and editor with extensive experience with board games. When not busy scribbling her thoughts, you might find her in her garden, hiking out in the woods, or exploring new food joints.
Veronica is a die-hard board game and chess hobbyist by night. She likes to try out new games and is always on the lookout to recruit new players for her game night (so beware!). When not playing board games or throwing darts, she is usually busy painting miniatures (or doing other nerdy stuff).
She is the CEO & Content Writer of Indoor Games Zone. She shares her expertise from years of playing chess, board games, and darts.
