Steel And Rifle Cartridges – Chess Set Made For A Boss

Checkmate.  *loads king into AR-15*:

This chess set is yet another one of a kind item. I dare say this chess board may survive a nuclear blast! The board is constructed from 3/16 inch flat and 1/2 inch square pure solid hot rolled steel. Each board square is individually cut, prepped, welded to the steel frame. The board is signed and dated. Simple in design, but carefully crafted. The light squares are polished natural steel. The dark squares are hand painted black. The entire set is coated with clear polyurethane. The pieces are made using .223 caliber bullet shell casings, decorated with cuts, slashes, curls and bends. The light side pieces are set on red oak mounts,  using steel cased shells and the dark side pieces are mounted on black walnut, using brass cased shells.

More pics over at Etsy – HERE

If it wasn’t $510, I would have bought it before I blogged about it. :P

In the comments JamesF gives us a pic of his Marine 0311 Rifleman buddy’s homemade set in Afghanistan:

Awesome… I like how the royalty are .50s, and rooks are m203 shells.


Comments

15 responses to “Steel And Rifle Cartridges – Chess Set Made For A Boss”

  1. Targ8ter Avatar
    Targ8ter

    Should have been 5.56 brass vs. 7.62 steel…

    1. ENDO-Mike Avatar
      ENDO-Mike

      haha yea. Now you got me thinking 9mm vs .45 would make a good portable set. :P

  2. JamesF Avatar

    A Marine 0311 buddy of mine posted this from his recent stay in Afghanistan:

    http://a6.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/183683_203318623011648_100000005348054_851018_3339834_n.jpg

    I’m thinking improvised chess sets like that were the inspiration for the one in your post.

    1. ENDO-Mike Avatar
      ENDO-Mike

      That’s awesome James. Thanks a lot, I added it to the post!

  3. ostrovsky Avatar
    ostrovsky

    judging by the arrangement of pieces on second picture the ‘bravest’ did not use these for other than decorative purposes.

    1. If you’re referring to the fact that they don’t know how to set up a chess board – good observation. These numbnutses might be in trouble if they spend a year playing chess like this and then play against someone who realizes that the kings and queens need to be set up directly across from their counterparts. I assume the intact round is the king, so at least the white side is correct.

    2. The difference between the way you play and the way they play… they have to duck during real firefights and work their asses off trying to save your ass so you can play with the pieces in the correct place. Get it?

      1. I played chess quite often when I was deployed to Afghanistan as an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne. But we knew how to place the pieces on the board correctly. Get it?

  4. Not legal in Massachusetts without a Firearms ID card or LTC.

  5. i’d pay more for the Marines set.

  6. JamesF Avatar

    Hah…that picture got picked up by Neatorama:

    http://www.neatorama.com/2011/05/02/chess-set-improvised-by-marine-in-afghanistan/

    then Boing Boing:

    http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/03/marines-shell-casing.html

    and then I saw it today on Gizmodo:

    http://gizmodo.com/#!5798219/this-is-how-you-play-chess-in-a-warzone

    What’s most annoying is that all of the comments are about the mis-arrangement of the black king and queen… who cares?!

    ostrovsky, allow me to indulge your idea of “decorative purposes” for a moment by creating some context for the picture. These guys were living in tents or less throughout their entire deployment. Some of them had improvised shelters out of ponchos and camo netting. They did their laundry in a mop bucket they passed around. They showered in a couple of mostly open stalls made out of wooden pallets and pieces of cardboard boxes. They had a hand-made Monopoly set and they built a volleyball net out of random scrap. Their living conditions would be appropriately called “austere.” I can assure you that they didn’t make that chess board just to take a picture of it. Take a look at that picture again. You see those stacked sandbags? That’s a chair. The boxes underneath the board? MRE’s as a makeshift table. That dusty mesh off to the side? That’s a one-man tent that someone called home for a year. You probably don’t understand the epic boredom and day-to-day life of most deployments if your knowledge of war comes from a video game.

    1. ENDO-Mike Avatar
      ENDO-Mike

      Awesome, thanks for the heads up on the links James.

      Hahah yea I totally agree with you about the incorrectly placed king/queen complainers.

  7. I want it too!

  8. JamesF if you put your buddy in touch with us at Glosgames we would love to send him a custom Marine Corp chess board as a gift from our company – we make vinyl roll up style chess boards (all made in the US!) and can make just about any image on them. He can ditch the cardboard and upgrade on us =)

    Let me know where to send it (in care of you is fine, too, if your buddy wants to keep his privacy)

    Lolly at Glosgames

  9. Vic Mategrano Avatar
    Vic Mategrano

    Do you sell the board for the steel and bullet chess set separately? If so, how much does it cost?