Chess Mate | India

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Inside this oldest handcrafted chess set factory in India lies the secret to making the world’s most exquisite chess pieces. The knight is the hardest to craft!
Amritsar. Home to the holiest shrine of the Sikhs, the iconic Golden Temple in the state of Punjab in northwestern India. Just a few kilometres away, in a back street, artisans toil away to create exquisite chess pieces. This is the manufacturing unit of The Chess Empire, India’s oldest makers of handcrafted chess kits. Rishi Sharma is the three generation owner.
Making a chess piece is a complex process. First, logs of wood are cut into slabs one-and-a-half feet long. These slabs are then slow-dried for up to eight months before shaping can begin. They are then cut into small blocks and taken to turning machines. Special tools are thrusted against the spinning wood block, carving out pieces with precision and accuracy.
Wood chunks are then scooped out from under the base of each piece to create a cavity for weights that provide stability. It’s then sealed with plaster of Paris. The pieces are sanded down once more and taken for colouring and quality check.
Of all the pieces, the knight is the toughest to craft. Achieving accuracy and consistency over hundreds of designs is the real challenge on these pieces, like this one from the King’s Crown series that is priced at $1000 without the board.

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@yakkyuu12 2 жыл бұрын

There are MANY PROBLEMS with the QUALITY --CHECKS!! There are sets SPECIFIC to Chess Empire that ARE ON KZbin ---- showing serious mistakes, on a so called "luxury set"! To make it WORSE , Chess Empire NEVER responded to these people BAD issues! Too MANY sets from (various) INDIA shops ARE being talked about CONSTANTLY as people look over their sets and find SO MANY problems, (chips, bad paint, scratches, miss sizing and DEFINITELY the POOREST pieces of wood that we HAVE SEEN cracked as the sets are JUST OPENED! There is a LITTLE room for SLIGHT (very slight) variation because the sets are hand made! But we ARE SEEING FAR TOO MUCH POOR quality and poor workmanship in pieces that should NEVER LEAVE THE FACTORY --- NEVER! Even the felt falls OFF the bottom and the WEIGHTS ARE LOSE so many times, this creates a very annoying sound EVERY TIME you move the piece! It DOES NOT MATTER ---AT ALL -- that these sets are "hand made" the specs, QUALITY, DETAILS and the choosing of QUALITY PIECES --OF WOOD- has been WORSE and people DO have a RIGHT to expect BETTER when you PAY for a good set and even LOWER end boxwood sets! The sites that sell SO MANY sets call them "luxury" and go ON AND ON about being "hand made", HIGH QUALITY workmanship and use this a selling point----but SO MANY TIMES -- they DELIVER VERY SUB PAR sets! That should never be sold! To make it WORSE contacting in ANY MANNER, the many sellers in INDIA --they DO NOT RESPOND-- AT ALL! When you send back a couple of BAD PIECES -- it take more than a month to get the new ones and THEN-- EVEN THOSE pieces HAVE BEEN BAD! THE WHOLE LEVEL OF QUALITY wood they CHOOSE and the WHOLE QUALITY CONTROL of what goes out the door ---BEFORE shipping ---- NEEDS TO BE SO MUCH more RELIABLE and better! They WILL lose business as this keeps up and these issues ARE BEING TALKED ABOUT --a LOT, ALL OVER the online chess forums!