It's quite amazing to me how many times we see a chess boards on TV/Film/magazines where the board is the wrong way around as in the above link (Ice Speed Chess Game £8.68).
A recent cartoon in Private Eye showed the board the wrong way around. I emailed them and they said it would be corrected in the next issue, which it did but credited it to someone else with a much funnier reply than mine. White is Right!
Some years ago I bought an Isle of Lewis moulding kit which consisted of a resin substance and rubber moulds, if I remember correctly I mixed the resin poured it in the suspended moulds - a cut out shoe box - waited for them to cool down and reused the moulds. One of the piece moulds actually melted from the heat and I was unable to create a full set. It would then have been possible to hand paint the pawns and pieces.
As written above I've seen some beautiful chess sets in Africa (Kenya) made from what they term as soap-stone which if I'm NOT mistaken is actually chalk.