Marine’s Field-Improvised Chess Set From Afghanistan

CNC & Machining Fun & Games Technology

I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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@seanragan

May 4th, 2011December 17th, 2015 72

This chess set appeared in the comments on this post, which features a heavily stylized shell-casing set for sale by Etsy seller OldeWorldCC. Unless I miss my guesses, the queens are .50 BMG rounds, the kings .50 BMG casings, the rooks 40mm grenade casings, the bishops 7.62mm rounds, the knights taped 7.62mm casings, and the pawns 5.56mm casings. And it looks like the bases are water-bottle caps. [via Boing Boing]