Minneapolis Skyline Chess Set

Drawing inspiration from the city I live in and cherish, I designed a unique chess set featuring skyscraper pieces. The process began with digital modeling, followed by 3D printing and hand-finishing a set of masterpieces. I then created silicone molds and produced urethane resin castings. This project marked my first experience with casting, and I am thrilled with the outcome.

Tools Used: SolidWorks, Sketchup, 3D Printing, Resin Casting

In the News: Linkhttps://www.spyder3dworld.com/the-city-of-waters/ The Finished Chess Set The Finished Chess Set The Inspiration The Inspiration

Beautiful Minneapolis skyline. I love this city and wanted to create something that would capture a small element of it to share with others.

You can see most of the buildings I ended up using as the models for the chess. The IDS tower on the left is the clear king as the tallest building in the state. Wells Fargo to the right of it is the queen. The Campbell-Mithun tower with its pointed stepped roof made the perfect bishop. The Foshay, peeking out between the IDS and Wells Fargo is my pawn. On the right of the photo you can just see the Hennepin County Government Center peeking out, which made a great rook. Not in this picture is are the Fifth Street Towers which I ended up selecting for my knights. First test print First test print

The buildings are approximately 1:3000 scale and scaled by height proportional to their real world counterparts. I created the models in SolidWorks using photos, google maps, and Sketchup models for reference.

First print of the building concepts, sharing this photo over social media created a lot of positive feedback from my friends which gave me the motivation to keep the project going. Printing Masters Printing Masters

After a few rounds of iteration I printed the mold masters with the highest quality my printer is capable of, .1mm layers. Printed Masters Printed Masters

All of the masters printed and positioned on a chess board to check for final scale. Finishing Work Finishing Work

To get rid of all of he layer lines I sprayed the printed pieces with high build primer then sanded back down with increasingly fine grit sandpaper. On the left is a sprayed pawn, and on the right is an almost finished sand job. Ready for Casting Ready for Casting

Many, many hours of painstaking sanding later I was ready to start casting. Making the Molds Making the Molds

I used Mold Star 15 from Smooth-On to make the molds. It is a two part silicone you mix by volume then pour over the masters which are hot glued inside a foam core box.

On the left you can see a DIY vacuum chamber I hacked together for this project using a champagne bucket, plexiglass, pipe fittings and a bike tire pump on which I flipped the valve to pull air instead of pushing it. With a little bit of elbow grease I can get down to 25 inHg of vacuum, not quite the ideal 29 inHg but good enough. All of the Molds All of the Molds

Here are all of the dump molds I created for the chess set. Learning to get good casts without air bubbles was a bit of a process, the secret turned out to be baby powder! Dusting the inside of the molds with talc helps the resin to flow into all the crevices. Casting Casting

Here is an in progress photo of casting some pawns as well as experimenting with resin dye to find the right shade of black. Casting Casting

Chess pieces were cast using Smooth-On 321 Urethane resin, it is a two part resin that you mix one to one by volume then have just a couple of minutes to pour before it solidifies into a hard plastic. Without coloring the resin a beautiful off white, and a special resin dye is used to tint the pieces black.

Once I got the process figured out I made castings of each piece to make a full white and black set. A little over a pound of resin goes into the full chess set. iso.jpg IMG_20160313_134138.jpg Pawns - Foshay Pawns - Foshay Rooks - Hennepin County Government Center Building Rooks - Hennepin County Government Center Building Bishops - Campbell-Mithun Tower Bishops - Campbell-Mithun Tower Knights - Fifth-Street Towers Knights - Fifth-Street Towers Queen - Wells Fargo Tower Queen - Wells Fargo Tower King - IDS King - IDS