Decided to see if I could pour molten pewter into a Draftboard mold cut on my Glowforge pro and it worked! Next step was to pour chess pieces and build a chess board with storage drawers for the pieces. Board measures 19”x19”x3” and has enlayed numbers and letters all cut on the glowforge. The board top is leather cut and scored on the glowforge. The board and pieces were all hand painted and clear coated. The 32 pieces weigh a total of 8.28 lbs with the heavest piece weighing 5.3oz. The board weighs 14.2 lbs. The height of the pieces range from 2” to 3 3/4” tall. I was able to get two to three uses out of each mold and used a small hot pot to melt the pewter that I purchased on etsy. I used baby power to act as a mold release. Project took approx 6 months and was a lot of fun…
Great work!!
Whoa. That’s a lot of work, outstanding result.
I’m truly impressed with the mold. I’ve never tried molding and don’t know if I will, but that is impressive.
Thank you so much for these photos of your outstanding chess pieces. The molds/jigs/frames are innovative and inspirational.
Wow, that’s absolutely beautiful! Thanks for sharing the process with us. When I was a kid, we used to melt pewter to make sinkers for fishing. Never thought of making the mold out of draft board.
You should definitely be proud of that build. Congratulations!
This is stunning
What an incredible project!!! Nice to see all the photos!
You have so much patience!
The final set is gorgeous and I imagine every person who sees it, or even better plays it, will be fascinated to hear of its creation!
Wow, that is really next level! That’s a valuable chess set you’ve got there.
Gorgeous chess set! Thanks for sharing your process with us. That took a great amount of patience and a lot of thought and work! Great job!
Pretty cool. It’s been awhile since I did pewter casting. I used silicone molds with draft board pieces to clamp the two halves of the silicone mold together. Never thought about using the draft board for the actual mold. I think I’d still go with the silicone though as you must have had to make a bunch of molds if you only got a couple/three pieces out of each. I don’t know what RTV silicone costs right now but I expect it would be cheaper than the draft board.
BTW, watch out for Etsy & eBay sellers of pewter ingots. You want to make sure it’s Britannia pewter as other pewter alloys can contain lead.
The stacked rectilinear designs from the draft board make the set very Minecraftish 
I know I’m impressed. Idea, design, and execution. All outstanding.
So you’re saying it’s not a travel set. Thanks for all the process photos!
That is so awesome. What a wonderful masterpiece to pass along to family! Amazing work.
What an amazing project! Thank you for sharing your process and the end result. Outstanding.