David, You've gotten some better advice than I could give, so will only take this opportunity to mention a chess board I had made.
I was working at the Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind. A friend of mine was a potter and she was getting ready to close down her studio. I asked her to throw me a chess set before she stopped making anything. She did, and after chatting about it, she glued that flexible refrigerator magnet stuff to the bottom of all the pieces. I started asking questions to the guys I worked with and came up with the idea of snagging a scrap piece of sheet steel and milling eighth inch deep pockets in the steel for the black squares. I talked to our programmer and he said he could do it. I found the scrap steel and talked to the mill operator and he said he could do it. anyway, I was leaving the LightHouse to go onto bigger and better jobs. My last day was getting close and no chess board was materializing. I just wanted the piece of steel and figured I could set it in my own frame once I got it, but no joy. Finally, on my last day of work, I was presented with the chess board, they had been stalling me and working behind the scenes to finish it. All the inset black squares were blued. The steel board was set into a walnut frame and using a water jet cutter, they had cut my name out of brass and cut the negative of my name into the walnut and set the brass name plate into the walnut frame. They also gave me a set of brass and steel classic chess pieces. The brass pieces having a tiny roll pin inserted into the top of each piece to distinguish them. They glued magnets to the bottom of the pieces, but they are so heavy that knocking them over is not an easy task even without the magnets. >From my original concept of a simple chess board, I ended up with a real show piece. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (412) 268-9081
