Restore chessmen varnish

Hello everyone,

I will soon get an old chess set that has lived well, and I would like to restore it.
The chessmen have a sentimental value and I don't want to damage them.
The pieces are still good looking but a good part of the varnish is gone.
They have a beautiful vein of wood that I want to leave apparent.
The whites and blacks colours are very close and it would be nice to accentuate the contrast make the game more readable.

I thought to proceed as follows:

1. Remove felts and weights.
2. Use Whithe Spirit + soft brush to remove old varnish.
3. Well dry with paper towels.
4. Fix the chessmen on rods using the weights holes
5. Soak directly a few seconds in two varnishes (a dark varnish and a glossy varnish)
6. Plant the rods on a support to dry
7. Replenishing felts and weights

it's a lot of work and I'm not sure if I am planing it right.
Have you ever done this kind of restoration before?
What tools/varnish do you recommend?

Thank you in advance for your advice
PS: sorry for my english it's not my native language

This is not a simple question. 

Is the finish actually varnish? There are many possible coatings and they have different solvents and different ways of repairing them - for example shellac (french polish) dissolves in alcohol and can be repaired, I don't think that lacquer can be repaired, varnish usually has to be removed. 

Soaking wood in varnish is an odd thing to do, varnish is a coating that covers the wood that you would paint on.  A dark varnish will tend to make the grain less visible. A dye-based wood stain or an oil finish will make the grain more visible.

The right treatment will depend on what is currently colouring the pieces, there may be dirt, discolouration of the finish, colour introduced using a stain, ebonising (multiple possible sources for the colour that are not traditional wood stains) or paint (which may have worn through making the underlying grain visible).  

Thanks a lot for your advice! I really think oil finish is a good option.

I will try to publish some photos of the set as soon as I get it back.

Finally I got the chessmen ! Here they are:

And the black and white pieces aside for comparison.

The Kings

The Queens (as you can see half of the varnish is gone for the white Queen)

Rooks

Knights (the photo is quite blurry sorry) - Eye balls are funny at first glimpse, then quite disturbing when playing (lol)

And Pawns

I forgot the Bishops but I think you understand the main issue : the lack of contrast.

When I used to play with my late father in law, we were quite confused by some of the pieces, inducing some stupid blunders in our games.

The laquer is also gone for most of the white pieces leaving the raw wood almost naked.

As I said the vein of the wood is nice and I would rather keep it visible.

I can leave blacks as they are still in good condition, but whites definitely need a refresh.

Maybe a whitening semi transparent lacquer would be the best option.

What do you think ?

Nice set, and I love those knights... would love a set of those someday 

Looks like my 1964 set I have the Gallant Knight I think, it's buried right now.  White pieces I believe were made of olive wood and dark pieces were rosewood.  All knights had glass eyes. Each piece looks exactly as my set except one rook is badly cracked and have never fixed it.  Was my first real set, I am still very found of it.

@ cgrau:

My mother in law confirm the set is made from olive wood, nice guess ! I searched for "Old Craftsman Lemon Oil with Beeswax" on Amazon, not very expansive. I think we'll give it a try. Thanks a lot for the tip 

Just for info the King is 83mm high (~3,27 inches), every piece is weighted and billard felted.

Kismet rather than Gallant Knight (which was a plastic set as I recall).

The one I saw was not as small as this one though.

Well, I'm familiar with these sets, and own one with 3.75" kings, so it was more than a guess. 

Yes, Kismet is what Lardy called them. Gallant Knight is known primarily for its plastic sets, but wooden sets also were sold under that name.

Amazing! I think the set is from 1960-70, bought in a shop in Paris. It is so nice to share with guys all over the world about old chessmen ! God bless the internet ! 

I noticed Bishops have a very thin neck and knights seems bulky compared to the other pieces.

I agree the knights are somewhat disproportionately large.

Looks as crappy as the set I have.... Burn It..!!!!

One of the corner was damaged.

I forgot to take a photo but I doubt I can repair it.