This project started innocently enough. Some people at my office wanted to know if I could print a chess set for them, and of course I said "Sure!". I looked around on here for chess boards and the puzzle ones really caught my eye.

Unfortunately, I wasn't really satisfied with any of the ones I saw. Some had pieces that were too loose, some were lacking uniform features on the top face, some were too small.

It was at that time that I decided that I'm just going to go build my own puzzle chess board (with blackjack...and hookers!). What I wound up with took ideas from several of the boards on this site, but with much tighter tolerances. The pieces fit together tightly enough that you can lift the whole board from the edge, but not so tightly that you need to hammer them together.

The end result (and what I posted here) is comprised of 30mm square pieces which are 5mm tall. The borders are 1.5x the piece height at 7.5mm, and they are 15mm wide. The full board will be 270mm square when assembled.

Full disclosure: This was printed on a Prusa I3 MK3S with a full Bear frame and a Bondtech geared extruder. You should be able to get very similar results on other printers as long as your extrusion multiplier is calibrated well. The tolerance between the pieces is 0.13mm, and the border is half of that.

If you would like to customize these files to resize the pieces or tweak the tolerances, the original design is up on OnShape. All of the important measurements have been set up as variables. All you need to do is create a free account, copy the document, change a variable or two, and then finally export the files.

https://cad.onshape.com/documents/d917ab2141b1ec8c0ee68162/w/d9e734076008a4148868fb3b/e/acf128cc6bc3cd29313eea13

P.S. The funny part of this whole story is...I don't play chess.

EDIT: Tweaked chamfers on outer edges of the main piece. I found that it was spilling over the edge a little making it hard to fit the pieces together. I also uploaded a 3mf file with my print settings.

Set the following to avoid the majority of gap fill when using a 0.4mm nozzle:

• Extrusion Width
  • Perimeters = 0.4mm
  • External Perimeters = 0.44mm
• Layers and Perimeters
  • Perimeters = 3 (Makes top ridges solid instead of having squiggle fill)

You will need the following quantity of each model:

• 32x of "Main Piece" in "light" color.
• 32x of "Main Piece" in "dark" color.
• 4x of "Corner" piece.
• 16x of "Border 1" piece.
• 16x of "Border 2" piece.

Print instructions

Print Settings

Printer Brand: Prusa

Printer: I3 MK3S

Rafts: No

Supports: No

Resolution: 0.2mm

Infill: 10

Filament: Hatchbox PLA