Piece Sizing Help

Hey guys! I am making a chess board and pieces custom for my boyfriend as a present. Being very new to chess I am kind of in over my head with this project. I want to make the size of each pieces correctly but it’s confusing. If anyone could help that would be great!

my board has tiles that are 2x2 inch and I have looked at the forums and had made my pawns with a 1.13 inch base.

Any help would be hugely appreciated

What a lovely gift! I'd be touched to receive such a set.

There's been a couple excellent threads where members thoroughly ran the numbers:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/a-system-for-sizing-chess-pieces-and-boards-long

and 

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chess-piece-sizing-proposing-and-testing-some-benchmarks 

Some additional resources here https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/correct-ratio-chessmen-base-to-square-size 

With a 2" square these the first thread would suggest a 1.53" king base and a 1.17" pawn base. The benchmarks of actual sets in the second thread suggest about 1.09 from the pawns.

It sounds like your pawns are right in range for favorable proportions. Maybe you could look at some sets whose proportions you like and use these formulae to size your own set?

Hi Jac,

From an old post by @Loubalch:

“Best practice has placed the ratio of the King Diameter (Kd) to the Square (Kd/S) between 72% and 82%. U.S. Chess Federation specifies a range of between 73-78% for tournament play. Other sources recommend anywhere from a low of 68% to a high of 85%, the median of which is 76.5%.”

FWIW, I’ve noticed more current chess sets used in tournaments today have smaller King bases — eg the FIDE set has a King base of 39mm, and is used on 55mm DGT boards (so 71%), and the DGT timeless pieces are even smaller, at 37mm (1.44”). Most people seem to prefer the FIDE set on 55mm (or even 57mm — 2.25”) squares, rather than on 50mm squares, even though the latter is more in the ‘recommended’ range.

For the Rook, Bishop and Knight, from my own research looking at past classic sets like the Lardy, Chavet, Dubrovnik, Piatigorsky, etc, the three pieces lined up should be about the length of 2 board squares. So if they’re all the same, then each should be 2/3 the size of a square. Sometimes the Rook base is a bit bigger than the Bishop/Knight (which some people like me prefer, given its greater value in the game).

Then just make the Queen base in between the King and the Rook.

Your pawn size seems fine to me, and should work with the other pieces. They are a smidgen smaller than the 2-pawns-to-a-square rule (which is a more modern sizing; just about no one follows the outdated, official FIDE rule about fitting 4 pawns to a square — not even FIDE itself, with its official chess set). Obviously the 4-pawn rule results in a much smaller pawn base. I personally think fitting 2 pawns to a square is good — that, or a bit smaller.

Good luck!

PS All these measurements go out the window if your boyfriend has more of an Eastern European / Soviet aesthetic… they like their boards CRAMPED!

I think I will make the King's base 1.53 inches but while all the threads are helpful, they are very confusing. I need the base sizes for the queen, bishop, rook, and knight in inches. The square is 2 inch and all the threads that I understood only talked about the king and the pawns. It does not have to be perfect so the pawns being slightly different is fine for me. @Kohpablanca 

Thank you!!!!