Barleycorn Chess Set Inspired by John Quincy Adams' ca.1825 Chess Set

I came across a unique chess set while visiting the Smithsonian Museum in 2017. The set was used by John Quincy Adams (JQA), the 6th president of the United States ca. 1825. I was so fascinated and took several photos through the glass with the mental plan to one day 3D print my own set. As with so many things, those photos were lost amid dozens more while touring Washington DC. Years later, I came across them again and set my mind to actually making the set.

The original JQA set was made of ivory in the Barleycorn style popular at the time. It is quite unique and posed a couple of design challenges. First, I didn't have measurements or any other details, so my design was based solely on perspective and comparison to modern Staunton chess pieces I owned and other Barleycorn sets I could find online. Second, 3D printing is a very different process than the turning process likely used to shape the JQA pieces out of ivory.

I did my best to reproduce the look and feel of the original JQA design that I saw in 2017. The most obvious difference is the knight. I pointed the snout upward to ensure it would print without supports. I am also not a guru when it comes to sculpting (design details can be found below). I wasn't sure if the rook had a removable flag, but my research on other Barleycorn sets suggested that removable flags were commonplace - they are often missing from period sets for sale in auctions. Printing the flag separately is much easier and as a bonus, playing with a rook whose flag waves about is quite enjoyable. The rook is by far my favorite piece.

I printed the pieces in white and red, very common colors for the Barleycorn style.

Each piece can be printed using generic PLA settings (0.4mm nozzle, 0.2mm layer height, 2-4 walls/tops/bottoms, and 40-60mm/s print speeds). No supports are needed.

The chess board I was using had squares are were about 1.75" on each edge. The set is scaled to fit a traditional board and should easily scale up if needed. Scaling down is a bit more problematic - 75-80% may be reasonable. Any smaller will likely require an SLA/DLP printer.

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