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Putting the chips on new pieces

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Hello everyone

I just purchased a certabo board and, while I wait to receive it, I wanted to ask what everyone is doing to attach the provided chips to a new set of pices (or a set we already have at home).

I'd like to be able to put the chips under the felt of a set of pieces we have so the pieces will look as perfect as they did before putting the chips in (felt or billiard cloth and all). Also, so the pieces look finished and beautiful to match the beauty of the board itself (and not like a crappy craft project, if you know what I mean 😉 ).

Thank you so much in advance for your suggestions

Best

Simplest way:

first: use the gluing part of the chip to fix a chamois leather, which should be larger than the chip, to "glue" it on the chip.
second.: use a nail scissors to cut the leather perfectly.
third: glue the chip with very little silicon directly on the pieces and let it dry. If there is felt on the piece remove it first.

thank you

sorry, I'm not sure I understand or if I made myself understood.

I have a beautiful set of staunton pieces with billiard cloth under the base and I would like (if possible) to put the chips under that felt so it was invisible and the piece looked as perfect as before. wonder if that is possible and if people were doing that and how.

thank you so much for taking the time, it's appreciated

Hello Pietro,

I too have recently purchased a set of chess pieces, in addition to my set of chess pieces, however these ones are not only for the smaller chess board but they are made of metal too. The metal is non-ferrous

Here's the link for the new chess pieces. So my question is this, given that the pawns measure about 17mm in diameter and the larger pieces are 20mm what size of discs can you supply? Assuming you have 15mm should I use this size the pawns and 20mm sized discs for the larger pieces or should I use the 15mm size for all of them?

See the attached for more images to give you context.

regards

Robert

 

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Quote from spaceboy68 on December 5, 2020, 12:20 am

I have a beautiful set of staunton pieces with billiard cloth under the base and I would like (if possible) to put the chips under that felt so it was invisible and the piece looked as perfect as before. wonder if that is possible and if people were doing that and how.

I think the key word here is "that" in "under that felt". I can't see how you will be able to lift the felt off the base of the piece without destroying the felt.

I am currently using an old plastic set where I removed the felt with a knife and used some sandpaper to remove any excess glue. I then attached a chip to the centre of the now bare bottom of the piece. Using the piece and the plastic frame that the chips came in I positioned the piece and frame on a new piece of felt (real felt this time, rather than billiard cloth) and then removed the piece while holding the frame still. This gave me a template to cut out a hole for the chip. This turned out to be harder than I expected and I always ended up tidying up the hole with a pair of scissors. I then cut a rough circle around this, bigger than the base of the piece, and glued it to the piece using Tacky Craft Glue (I was told normal PVA is too runny for felt). Once it dried I was then able to trim neatly around the base of the piece.

I cut the inner hole because my felt was advertised as 1mm thick but was actually slightly thicker than the chip, so it makes a nice support for the piece while the chip doesn't actually touch the board. If it had been the same thickness or slightly less I would then have glued a second layer to make the base of the piece one flat layer of felt.

I was able to be quiet aggressive on cleaning the pieces as these were cheap and old. I have a new set of Ebony/Boxwood pieces on the way and will probably attempt the same thing, but that will require a little bit more care! If the chips are nearer the size of the pieces (I have a set of 25mm chips to use) I might try and get some new billiard cloth and use that to cover the whole base instead of a ring of felt. Maybe a company that repairs pool/snooker tables can provide some offcuts as I need less than an A4 sheet for each colour of piece.

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Thank you so much, Graham, as this answers my question to perfection since i'm facing the same situation you will when your beautiful new pieces get there.

The only thing to clarify is: once the original felt is lifted (and, for what I see, probably taken completely off and even discarded if one can't take it all out safely in one piece, which may ultimately be the case), could you not just attach the chip to the base of the pieces with adhesive (i'm not sure if the chip already has an adhesive side as I have not yet seen one) and then cut a circular piece of felt/billiard cloth to measure and glue it right on top of the chip? Did you mean that this won't work if the felt/cloth is thicker than 1mm?

And this is for anyone who knows (perhaps Pietro?): do we know if the chips have to actually touch the board to be recognized or will they work at a distance of a couple of millimeters?

Thanks again for the very informative answer and I hope you have the time to share your process when you do get the new pieces, please.

In the meantime i'm looking around ebay and amazon for the cheapest set of 3.5" Franken-pieces to experiment on.

Quote from Robert on December 5, 2020, 4:56 pm

Hello Pietro,

I too have recently purchased a set of chess pieces, in addition to my set of chess pieces, however these ones are not only for the smaller chess board but they are made of metal too. The metal is non-ferrous

Here's the link for the new chess pieces. So my question is this, given that the pawns measure about 17mm in diameter and the larger pieces are 20mm what size of discs can you supply? Assuming you have 15mm should I use this size the pawns and 20mm sized discs for the larger pieces or should I use the 15mm size for all of them?

See the attached for more images to give you context.

regards

Robert

 

Hello Robert

Very nice set ! I know italfama, they are not very far from us their sets are very famous. Ok i have question have you checked with the standard 20mm chips if they work ok? The kit looks quite small so probably there is not much metal. You just need to check with one piece as maybe fully metal piece can affect a bit. Anyhow we have some naked coils 15mm but those need to be embedded in the base, so i reckon it's not an option. The smallest we could go with encapsulated plastic is 18mm so i reckon it's about fine and antenna should not be much smaller than the current 20mm. Only thing we do not have and it's custom one if you need we can make (so it will take some weeks to make).

PM me eventually,  also if there is some other requests for that size 18mm from other Certabo friends let us know as we normally need to make in order of 1000+ so good if we get some other requests for those.

All the best

Pietro

Quote from spaceboy68 on December 6, 2020, 5:37 pm

Thank you so much, Graham, as this answers my question to perfection since i'm facing the same situation you will when your beautiful new pieces get there.

The only thing to clarify is: once the original felt is lifted (and, for what I see, probably taken completely off and even discarded if one can't take it all out safely in one piece, which may ultimately be the case), could you not just attach the chip to the base of the pieces with adhesive (i'm not sure if the chip already has an adhesive side as I have not yet seen one) and then cut a circular piece of felt/billiard cloth to measure and glue it right on top of the chip? Did you mean that this won't work if the felt/cloth is thicker than 1mm?

And this is for anyone who knows (perhaps Pietro?): do we know if the chips have to actually touch the board to be recognized or will they work at a distance of a couple of millimeters?

Thanks again for the very informative answer and I hope you have the time to share your process when you do get the new pieces, please.

In the meantime i'm looking around ebay and amazon for the cheapest set of 3.5" Franken-pieces to experiment on.

Hello

No no need the chip to touch the board it can be read till some distance several mm from the board level (i reckon Graham was referring to the drill he made in the base 1mm deep as this is the thickness of the chip) to go flush with the base. Also the chips have  sticky 3m tape so you just stick them to the base after removing the felt and cut another felt to size which can be thicker than 1mm for sure. You can either sandwich the chip between two felts if you want also.

All the best

Pietro

Quote from spaceboy68 on December 5, 2020, 12:20 am

thank you

sorry, I'm not sure I understand or if I made myself understood.

I have a beautiful set of staunton pieces with billiard cloth under the base and I would like (if possible) to put the chips under that felt so it was invisible and the piece looked as perfect as before. wonder if that is possible and if people were doing that and how.

thank you so much for taking the time, it's appreciated

The problem is, that if you put the chip under the felt, it will look not very good. (1mm chip and 2mm felt makes the pieces "flying"....

chamois leather is very thin and so it will look much better....

Julian

I see. OK, thank you!

I will take a look at that too and keep it as an option. Would you (or anyone doing this) have any pictures by any chance?

thanks again

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