looking to buy a raumschach board and pieces

I'm not that good with arts and crafts, so I'm hesitant to attempt to create a board myself and after a several-hour search on line, I've found no place that sells raumschach boards.

For those who don't know raumschach is a 3D chess variant invented by Dr. Ferdinand Maack about 103 years ago (he taught at a German University).  Loosely translated "raumschach" means space chess.

Please either PM me or post an advert of the board or set (board and pieces) and price.

5 layers of 5x5 boards. I have not seen a commercial production of such a board.

You'll have to make one for yourself out of plastic or glass panes.

I'm not good with saws.  I have all my fingers because I know how much of a klutz I am with power tools.  This is why I want someone else to take the risk with powertools.

Here us a homemade 3-D chess set that you can immitate for the 5x5 board:

The owner drew the squares with a permanent marker. That is as much as you can do for the build. You'll have to ask someone else to cut the glass/plastic panes and drill the holes for you.

You might be able to do something similar with some of those folding cardboard boards. Glue popsicle sticks or something similar to the bottom so they don't fold and stick them on dowel rods. Not very pretty but no power tools or lost digits.

I've been muling over this problem for months.  If your desperate to get started, aquire 5 boards, lay them out side by side, use blue-painter's tape to mark off the edges and lable the a1-e5, layers z-v, flip rooks for the 8-directional "unicorns."  I've been translating chess to a 6x6x6 variant.  Then I discovered it was already done, 5x5x5, 100 years ago.  I was 3d-modeling it on my computer, wich was starting to die, and I really wanted to start answering some end game questions.  Then I remembered they didn't have computers 100 years ago.  Have fun. 

Some varient will go mainstream soon.  When the chess of StarTrek looks more like the chess of Star Wars

Above is a Raumschach set I built myself, they have never been built comercially, so you pretty much have to build your own.

While some 3D Chess sets are available on E-bay or Amazon.com from past commercial production, few are being commercially produced at the time of this writing.  One of the most popular versions, 5x5x5 has never been commercially produced.  The following are directions for building your own Raumschach (5x5x5) set, but the same design can be adjusted to build an 8x8x8 or an 8x4x4 (Quadlevel) set. 

To begin with you will want to contact a glass supply company and order five 10” x 10” plates of Plexiglas with smoothed edges.  Then you will want to get the following parts from a hardware store:

·        Four 2’ Threaded Steel Dow Rods

·        Four “feet” threaded to match the rods

·        Four “rounded ends” also threaded to match the rods

·        Spacer Sleeves (I used the black plastic ones used as sleeves to large nails to space roof drains from the edge of the roof).

·        Flat Black Spray Paint

·        2” Painters Tape

Start by using a drill press to drill holes in the four corners of the Plexiglas plates.  (You can have the Glass supply house do this, but they often charge a lot).  The holes should be large enough for the dowl rods to pass through, but smaller than the sleeve/spacers.

Next use the 2” tape to carefully spray paint the “Chess Board” pattern.  Make sure you make the boards so that they alternate (three of the plates should have black on the four corners; two should have clear on the these corners). 

First place the four feet on the four corners then you may want to add a small round of four spacers.  Next thread the bottom (one with black on the corners) down onto the rods, followed by a round of four spacers, then another plate (remember to alternate the patterns, also remember to place the spray painted side down, so that the pieces will not scratch or wear the paint) until you have all five plates on.  Then add any spacers needed to get to the end of the rods and screw the ends onto the top.  You now have your own Raumschach “board”. 

If you build an 8x8x3 set, remember to use 1” dow rods and not to alternate the pattern, and of course you will want to use 16” Plexiglass plates. 

Good info.  Nice work.  Also a step-drill bit works well on the acrylic.  I would also recomend 4-color coding where the unicorns fly.  -Which is why the 5x5x5 version is infirm.  Each side has 2 Unicorns that exsist on their 1/4 of the spaces, (much like each bishop exsists on only light or dark spaces.1/2)  This means 1/2 the spaces are No unicorn spaces.  Which is why 3d chess, in a cube, should have an even number of spaces in a row, and there should be 4 'unicorns,' (if we really want to call them that,) or at least multiples of 4 for complete coverage like the 2 bishops cover all the spaces.  Make up your own game.  4-color coding, and light and dark, make things much easier to 'see.'

Here's a new version you might find interesting.  Inspired by Raumschach and Star Trek's tri-dimensional chess, it's a completely new chess game called Yavoch. It took two years to develop the rules and the game board. You can read more at the web site -- http://www.Yavoch.com

That guy was light years ahead of his time. Would I buy one? No.! I like it though.!

How about 25% off?  Limited time offer, 25% off any and all Yavoch items when you enter the coupon code: YAVOCH-25 on the checkout page. Offer expires Sept. 15, 2014.

http://www.Yavoch.com

RAUMSCHACH PHOTOS NEEDED!

Hey -- we're publishing a book about chess variants which mentions this game. Does anyone have a good photo of a set (I see some good ones here) -- that we can use in our book? Please contact me through my web site AncientChess.com

I've wanted to buy one, too, & found that they're unavailable.

What I do for this game, as well as for some other chess games w/ multiple levels, is use one board , but multiple sets of pieces for each side, each of different colors (or w/ some other distinguishing characteristic), w/ the different colors signifying the different levels the pieces would be on if a traditional, multi-level board were being used.

Hi Ancient Chess, Do you sell the RAUMSCHACH set? Wasn't able to find the above on either of the above websites.