Wood Chess Boards – Inlaid or Solid?

Over the years we have had a lot of customers that are completely confused about wood chess boards and what they are buying, and it’s understandable. What is an inlaid chess board anyway – what does that mean? And when people look at the chess boards on the website, they certainly look like they are solid wood. Who would know? So let me give a brief dissertation on wood chess boards.

There are really only two types of wood chess boards, a solid wood chess board that is made from nothing but solid pieces of wood glued together and inlaid chess boards that are made from a substrate of some sort, like a particle board (a wood material) and are covered with wood veneer. They are both "real" wood chess boards but they are made differently by using different types of wood material.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both types of chess board. The first thing one will notice is the price difference between the two. A good quality inlaid chess board with 2.25” squares can be purchased for about a hundred bucks. A good quality solid wood chess board of the same size will cost about 4 to 5 times that much or even more. There are two things in play here; one is that all of that solid wood is pretty darn expensive and two, it’s simply a lot more work and takes a lot more labor (skilled labor at that) to make a chess board from a set of seventy or more solid wood pieces that all have to be perfectly glued together.

There are obviously other differences beyond cost. A solid wood chess board can have a lot more problems than an inlaid board simply because of the solid wood. Solid wood is sensitive to moisture and needs to have been properly cured before being made into a chess board. Solid wood is more apt to warp over time and can develop cracks. The joints of a solid wood chess board can over time start to separate if the wood was not properly cured or if the gluing job was sub par. Having said this, the real craftsmen making wood chess boards for a living know all of these things and are careful about the chess board construction. So you shouldn’t have to worry too much about this if you buy a chess board from a reputable company.

 An inlaid chess board can look every bit as beautiful as a solid wood chess board. You will generally have a lot more options with the type of wood you can get with an inlaid chess board. For example, we offer inlaid chess boards in walnut, mahogany, tiger ebony, elm root, teak, rosewood, African padauk and in a range of different color stained veneers as well. It’s a huge choice, whereas solid wood chess boards are more limited due to the availability of solid wood and the cost of it. But you can get a lot more creative with the design of a solid wood chess board simply because you are working with a 3 dimensional pieces of wood rather than a 2 dimensional piece of veneer. 

For the money you cannot beat the value of a high quality inlaid chess board. You can get just about any size and any type of wood or color for less than $200. We have our inlaid chess boards made by Rechapados Ferrer in Spain and the quality of their workmanship is remarkable. We also have a nice collection of inlaid chess boards from Italfama in Italy . The quality of these chess boards is excellent as well. We also carry a line of inlaid chess boards made in China . These are decent inlaid chess boards and are an excellent value for the price (less than $70) but the quality is not as good as the Rechapados Ferrer or Italama chess boards and for the price you wouldn’t expect it.

We currently carry two solid wood chess boards made by a company here in the United States . We carry American black walnut and maple and African Padauk and maple. These chess boards are absolutely beautiful and very well made. You would not go wrong with these boards.

We hope this makes it a little easier to choose what type of wood chess board is right for you!

Inlaid African Padauk and Birds Eye Maple Chess Board 

Inlaid Color Stained Veneer Chess Board 

Solid American Black Walnut and Maple Chess Board 

What Makes a Good Chess Set?

There’s a lot more to making a good chess set than you would imagine. It starts with a raw piece of wood or maybe even an entire log and culminates in 32 finished chess pieces that have weights inside and pads on the bottom. A tremendous amount of work is required to make even the simplest chess set and times that by ten for the fancier chess sets. Pieces are individually turned on a lathe one at a time and the knights are hand carved with grinding tools, so it's not automatic that a good chess set pops out at the end of the process. Without going into the minutia from our quality documents, we would like to share with you the general characteristics you should find, or not find, on a good chess set.

A good or even great chess set is not dependent on how complex or intricate the design is. Our German Knight chess set is terrific for what it is – a good quality, affordable wood chess set for playing the everyday game of chess at home. It’s probably not the chess set you would want to display on an expensive chess board to dress up the décor in your living room but it’s a great chess set for playing. So keep in mind a good chess set is one that fits your needs and one that you just simply like.

Starting from the wood up, a good chess set must be made from a very hard and dense wood such as sheesham (golden rosewood), boxwood, rosewood, ebony, red sandalwood, or padauk. These woods make up nearly all of the good quality wood chess sets in the world, all of which come from India. Soft wood such as pine or wood with an open grain such as oak are not suitable for making chess sets.

The color of the wood should be consistent within the set. For example, a rosewood chess set should not have a mix of dark brown pieces with the more typical orange-burgundy colored pieces.  Mixing two different colors looks odd and can appear as though the pieces are made from totally different types of wood, even though they are not. The only wood that is almost never a problem is ebony – black is black.

A good chess set will be in good condition. You will not find pieces that are cracked, broken, dented, scratched, or chipped. Pieces should be sanded smooth so there are no visible lines from being turned on the lathe or at the very least, the lines should be very faint and hard to see. Pieces should be polished to a fine luster to bring out the grain and color of the wood while ebony should look almost like black glass.  Beautiful to touch.

A good chess set will be weighted and most chess sets are. The higher priced chess sets are usually weighted more than the less expensive sets.  The weights are important to give the chess piece stability on the chess board so that it won't easily tip over or get knocked over during the course of a game. It’s important the weights do not protrude beyond the base because this will cause the piece to lean and wobble on the board. A good quality baize or billiard cloth pad should cushion the bottom and also serves to cover the weight. Cheap felt paper is the sign of a cheap set. Some sets have leather pads; however, we believe that baize is far superior. Leather does not provide a good cushion and it can grab on a chess board instead of smoothly sliding.

Pieces need to be visually straight up and down while sitting on the chess board. They should not be tilted or leaning to one side or the other and they should not be warped (rarely seen).  The profile of the piece should be symmetrical and the height of the pieces should be the same (i.e., all rooks the same height) as should be the diameter of the base. The knights should look alike and the features should look the same from piece to piece. For example, the size of the eye should be the same on all 4 knights and located in the same place on the head. Some variation will be seen from knight to knight because they are individually carved by hand but the variation should be minimal and barely noticeable without careful studying.

Even though we tout all of our chess sets as being high quality (and they are), more time and attention is spent on the higher priced chess sets than on the simpler and less expensive ones. And, if you’re spending several hundred to over a thousand dollars on a chess set, you should expect that more attention and emphasis was given to the fine detail - you're paying for it!  Think of it like a sliding scale in terms of how much time is spent on a chess set. The less expensive it is, the less time that is spent on it. The more expensive it is, the more time that is spent on it. However, the fundamentals that make a good chess set remain largely the same.

The last thing we want to point out is that no chess set is perfect. We look at thousands of chess sets every year and we will find tiny imperfections on even the most perfect set. It’s just a matter of how big a magnifying glass you use.  Each chess set has its own unique character, from the wood chosen to the skill of the craftsman making the pieces.

Just to summarize, here are the 8 most important things that make a good chess set:

1.   Good quality hard wood

2.   Consistent color from piece to piece

3.   Good condition - no cracks, broke pieces, dents, scratches, or chips

4.   Pieces should be sanded smooth and polished to a fine luster

5.   Pieces should be weighted and the weights should not protrude beyond the base

6.   Baize pads

7.   Pieces should be visually straight, symmetrical, be the same height and have the same base diameter

8.   Knights should look the same

These are the basics of a good wood chess set. Get your chess set out and see how it stands up to this check list.

Chess Wood on the Block

The New Wood on the Block

If you’ve spent much time looking at chess sets online you’ve probably seen those beautiful red-orange color blood rosewood chess sets. And, you may have wondered why The Chess Store doesn’t carry blood rosewood chess sets. Well, we would like to set the record straight and share with you why that is. There is a blood wood and there are several species of rosewood, but the truth be known, there’s no such thing as blood rosewood. What is mistakenly being calling blood rosewood is in reality – padauk or African padauk (aka Pterocarpus soyauxii).

African padauk is one of the most colorful of all the exotic woods and the term “blood rosewood” is definitely a good description. We just recently started carrying African padauk chess sets and we decided to refrain from the blood rosewood name, we’re sticking with African Padauk. Our padauk chess sets come from India where nearly all of the world’s decent wood chess sets come from. African Padauk is easily sourced in India and is about the same cost as ebony – rather expensive.

The use of African Padauk for chess sets is actually pretty new. The old standard for reddish color chess sets was red sandalwood. But India banned the export of red sandalwood and existing inventories have slowly been depleting to where there are very few red sandalwood sets left. We have a very small quantity left and the selection is getting smaller every day.

While red sandalwood is a pretty wood, African padauk is a lot more colorful and polishes to beautiful luster on the buffing wheel. Another nice characteristic of African padauk is that it does not darken nearly as bad as red sandalwood. What many people don’t know is that red sandalwood can look nice and red at the beginning  (brand new chess set) but it will darken to a deep burgundy, almost black, in just a couple of years. The oil in red sandalwood reacts with UV light accelerating the patina process. There’s no way around this except for keeping your chess set in the dark.

While red sandalwood chess sets will become rarer and perhaps even more valuable, if you want a chess set that just simply looks gorgeous, consider African padauk. There’s not another wood out there that makes a more beautiful chess set or chess board for that matter. We have padauk chess boards and they’re just as beautiful. When you get a chance we invite you to check out our new padauk sets, boards, and complete packages. You’ll enjoy the color!