Yeah its a real labour of passion these kind of things.
Years ago I made chess pieces on CNC at work, because the technicians had finished well ahead of time....and I had time booked that had become surplus at the end and bunch of aluminium and brass stock left.
It went much like this (though I only made pieces like in 2nd half of vid here and not a board):
I gifted that set I made to a good friend who appreciates such things....it sits in his man cave and I play him and others (his wife is very good at chess) when we hang out there heh.
I plan to make another chess set with wood sometime. I have a wood lathe, bandsaw and everything else I need.... things I use for more mundane fairly quickly accomplished wood items.
Chess set will use up lot of time in comparison as its all manual compared to CNC heh....I'll probably take it in steps. Great thing with wood is its material you can work with so easily using handtools, sandpaper etc while its still on the chuck.
But doing everything organically by hand like you do is true art so I can only imagine the passion and commitment it takes. 600 hours or any number disguises a lot of the real sweat and toil behind it.
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