i know i can only adjust pieces during my move, but i can adjust any piece on the board, correct? not just my own? came up during a tournament this past weekend.
thanks, …scot…
Yes.
Yes, you may adjust either your own or your opponent’s pieces, provided it is your move and you first announce your intent to adjust.
Be careful, though. If you are adjusting the piece your opponent just moved, don’t do so merely to get the knight facing the way you want it. You could end up on the receiving end of an annoyance complaint.
Some players seem to think that no piece is adjusted correctly unless they were the last one to touch it. Adjusting the opponent’s pieces can get out of hand.
Bill Smythe
It gets really fun with things like when one player feels that knights should be adjusted facing the opponent and the other feels they should be adjusted at the start of the game facing the king/queen of that color and then retain that facing throughout the game. You could easily see all four knights getting adjusted as part of each and every move by each of the two players. The TD will generally step in at that point because all of those j’adoube calls would be disturbing other games.
I remember a game between two young players where at every move the player on the move would say '“J’adoube” and adjust all 4 knights, one player wanted them facing forward and the other wanted them facing sideways.
We got a complaint from neighboring boards, so we told the players that from that point on they were only allowed to adjust their own pieces.
Adjusting the pieces is generally for centering them, not spinning them the way you like. Frequent j’adoubes for centering a piece that is one micron off center is going to earn a complaint and a TD ruling. Yes, people are often sloppy in the way they place the pieces. If the piece is on or over the edge of a square or on the vertex of several squares, it can be adjusted. It is usually best to just adjust your own pieces, and do it as infrequently as possible. I have seen instances of little “j’adoube wars,” usually by adults, trying to annoy an opponent who they have an overall beef with over time. That said, issues over adjusting pieces are a de minimus problem for TDs.
I like the Queen, Rooks and Pawns to face a specific direction. 
There are those afflicted with OCD who do like to arrange all of the pieces in specific ways. I have watched such a player take over a minute making sure both the King and the Rook are placed perfectly behind the pawns when he castles. His King has a jewel in the cross which he makes sure to point toward him. Sometimes he cleans the squares before finishing castling. He has asked opponents if their hands are clean before they play. Not sure how he survives when playing out of town.
Do you mean the seam in the molding has to be parallel to the rows or parallel to the files?
At one Master-Expert event Player A would mi-center all of his own men. The pieces were still in the square, just not in the center. His OCD opponent, when it was his turn, adjusted those off center pieces so that they were perfectly centered. As one can imagine this got out of hand and a complaint was registered. A warning was issued, but the two players continued their childish way. The TD finally ruled that no adjustments could be made without first getting TD approval. And yes the player that could not find the center of the square was informed he was annoying is opponent and he was warned to mend his ways.
Oh no, I was referring to my wooden carved set…
the slant angle of the bishop’s mitre doesn’t have to be at parallax with the sun?
thanks for the replies, guys!
…scot…