Jim Wilson wrote:

I say go for it and turn your own! Your a woodworker, right? You can do
it!

Can and will, but the clock is still ticking... I like Tom's idea about
buying a good reference set anyway. My best set currently is one of those
glass sets from Big Lots. I actually love it, but some of the pieces look
a little weird.

So the current plan is to buy a set of ready-made plastic ones for the
travel board thingie I'm making. The board I've made will be incorporated
into a hinged lid on a piece storage box made out of more of the same scrap
table. I think it will make a really nice travel set, and all my son's
friends will be impressed, unless their parents are *real* woodworkers.

Then come spring I want to go scrounge up some walnut and maple or something
and set about making a proper board with storage drawers and whatnot, and
really doing it up nice, to be my best project ever. I'm seeing this as
very ornate, and very dark, to normally reside in the middle of my light
"indonesian maple" dining room table. I might even think about using
shellac on it instead of poly.

(I'm going to use poly on the travel set for sure, since it has a better
than average chance of going swimming the next time the tent leaks.)

I think for *that* I will set about turning the set. I *do* think I can do
it, but I expect it to take a very long time to get it right, and I don't
have that much time this year. I have a low tolerance for freezing my
num-nums off.

One of my first turning projects was a chess set. It's not perfect, but
it's still in very frequent use nearly a decade later.

www.paragoncode.com/woodworking/chess_set

Those look *quite* nice! Puts me in a mood to chuck a dowel into my drill
press and have at it, in spite of everything I just said.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/