Something About 3-D Printing

Do it yourself Bellairs.

I stumbled upon a link to the files needed to print your own copy of the Lewis Chessmen, the enigmatic game pieces on display at the British Museum in London and featured in The Chessmen of Doom (1989). I knew you could order replicas for your own at home game play but the notion of printing a copy is incredible. It makes sense; I mean, you can print 3-D models of most any household object. I'm just thinking of whosis, who originally carved these pallid dwarves many hundreds of years ago, and how he might have had a bad day. Maybe the knife slipped on the king. Maybe he dropped and chipped a berserker? Those imperfections are all we know and now will be propagated through print for another generation.

A printed version of the chessmen would certainly have helped Perry Childermass and Edmund Stallybrass in their little endeavours, one supposes.

It got me thinking, of course, of what other Bellairsian trinket would you 3-D print and sit on your bookshelf as a token of your favorite book or conversation piece? Here are some of my ideas – what are yours?