Three-dimensional chess pieces from a tool built to cut flat shapes.
Around the end of my first year in grad school I was between research projects and used the time to explore what our lab's laser cutter could do. Instead of cutting flat shapes from sheets, I wanted to see if it could make three-dimensional objects.
It turned out to have nothing to do with my research, but making tiny plastic chess pieces was instructive and extremely fun.
Pawn, bishop, queen, king, rook, knight. Each is cut twice from one bar: the profile once, then the piece is turned 90° in its own cutout and the profile is cut again.
The write-up. The trick is leaving the piece attached at its base for the first cut and keeping the surrounding offcut as padding to hold it for the second.