Chess Set

There were so many possible directions for me to take this project, and I settled on a design with a balance of originality and creativity: space.

Following the space theme, I wanted a mixture of purple and silver in my design. Through material exploration, I settled on purple dyed epoxy and bismuth metal.

Using a wood lathe and a laser cutter, I created each component of my design from cherry wood and basswood.

Using the master pieces, I created rubber molds with the Mold Max 30 mixture.

I tried multiple strategies for casting the tops of my pieces with epoxy. The best results came from those casted directly into the wood from the laser cutting.

Also casted in epoxy, the bodies of my pieces came out of the rubber molds fairly clean, just requiring some wet sanding and a coat of spray resin.

With a low melting point of 520°F, bismuth was easily melted on my stovetop. The mold material I purchased was heat resistant, allowing for a very clean cast of this molten metal.

Finally, I finished all of my epoxy and bismuth casts. I chose my favorite set of toppers (left) and got to work on assembly.

for final results…