instructables

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!

by geekswoodshop

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 1

Perhaps like some of you, I had not heard of
Crokinole for much of my life. After my sister met and
married a fine Canadian fellow, he introduced our Supplies:
family to the game and now our holidays include Part of the fun is changing the colors and contrasts
Crokinole tournaments around the dining table. Good on the board, and thankfully most of the material is
times. plywood. Use a decent grade of ply, but then you can
use different stains or accent wood to make the board
Official Crokinole boards have a playing circle of 26 your own. I used this combination:
inches. Some boards are made with a 24-inch circle
to maximize the number of boards that can be made Material:
from a standard 4'x8' sheet of plywood, but by golly, I
want to be official, so this here I'ble is for a 26" board. 3/4 ply for the base

The idea is to flick a disc from the outer circle and 1/2 ply for the playing surface - (Stained dark for
land it in the inner ring, but you can't score unless the contrast)
opposing player has no discs on the surface, so you
also have to use your discs to knock opposing discs Walnut outer trim
off the board. The full set of rules are easy to find
online. It's a fairly straight forward game, easy to pick Tools used:
up, tons of fun and quick to play. The only challenge
is that the boards themselves are hard to come by. Miter saw and/ or Table saw

Sounds like a chance to get out to the shop and have Hand-held router. A palm-sized router is ideal. 1/4
some fun. and 1/16 straight bits used.

Download and reference the accompanying PDF for Drill and bits
some of the build plans.
Wood glue and clamps

I've got a video of this build as well. One note on the Brad or pin nailer
video version. I make discs as well in the video, but I
don't recommend doing so after going through the
process. Discs are pretty cheap, build the board, and
buy the discs.

//www.youtube.com/embed/9KdKXamULdo

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 2

 Download
https://www.instructables.com/ORIG/FOH/LD15/JZN5GW51/FOHLD15JZN5GW51.pdf
…

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 3

Step 1: Circle or an Octagon Base?

The playing surface is a large circle, but the game saw and this went quickly.
has an outer tray and wall to catch stray discs that
are knocked off the board. You'll see this outer wall When attaching these together I used some dominos
made as either a larger circle or an octagon. When to help line them up, but this isn't necessary. You
made as a circle, the process is likely to use long, could also use a biscuit joiner for this purpose, but
thin strips of wood to wrap around the base several really you can just use glue for now. Even though it's
times, being laminated into the final circular wall. a series of somewhat weak butt joints at this point,
once the playing surface is glued down on the base,
I chose instead to create the octagon outer shape, that is a massive amount of strong glue surface and
which seemed a bit simpler and I liked the look of it it's gonna hold together just fine.
better anyway.
For the base, I suggest gluing the segments together
I made the base from 3/4 plywood, cut into 6" widths. 2 at a time, then into halves and test the final fit. Any
(You could also use 1/2" ply.) Being an octagon, we'll minor errors in the 22.5 deg angle will show up and
be cutting 8 pieces with a 22.5 deg angle on each you can take a slight cut and fix this before gluing the
side. You can cut these easily by making a cut, two halved together.
flipping the board, making the next cut, and repeating
this process. I just set up a stop block at my miter One purely optional note. The individual pieces are

small enough to easily fit on a laser cutter, so I your own boards in unique ways before gluing them
created a pattern and etched each piece. Because together.
these pieces are identical, you don't need a laser
cutter. You could create a template to paint or mark

1
1

1. An angled stop block makes these cuts quick and easy. 1. I'm marking these boards for domino placement, but the dominos are
optional. Simple glue joint will hold it for now until we attach the top.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 4

 1 1

1. Glue in pairs first, then into halves. Holding the parts together is tricky 1. Test the final two halves for how tight the fit is. Make tiny cuts to fine
for clamps, so tape may be your best option while the glue dries. tune if necessary, glue the base together and set it aside for when the top
is ready.

1. This laser etched pattern is optional of course, but was a way to make my
board unique.
2. I cut an extra octagon piece and secured it in the laser, then each piece
was placed exactly on top and the same pattern was used on every piece.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 5

Step 2: Make the Playing Surface

Start by finding the center of your board. Use a pencil Use a scrap piece of ply and drill the same dowel rod
on a string or scrap board to make a mark 13" from hole. Make marks at 4", 8", 12" and 13" from that
the center and trace out that circle. Roughly cut that center dowel. For now, we just need the 13" mark,
circle out to make it easier to handle. we'll use the other marks in the next step.

Using the center point, drill with a 1 3/8" Forstner bit Attach your router to the jig so the bit is positioned to
about halfway through your board. Do NOT drill all cut right at the outside of the 13" mark. Plunge your
the way through, we'll complete this hole after the top router through the jig and cut the ply circle out in 2-3
surface is completed. passes.

Use some spare dowel rod, something like ~1/4" and Sand the edges and apply color or stain at this point
drill the same size hole in the center of your board/ depending on the look you are going for.
forstner hole. We'll use this as the pivot point to cut
the board into a perfect circle and route the circle
markings.

2 1 1

1. 1-3/8" forstner bit is drilled only partially through the board. 1. Attaching the router base to cut a 13" diameter.
2. Rough cut the circle to make it easier to work with, but don't get too
close to the final edge.

1 1

1. Using the pivot point of the jig in the center of the board and cutting the 1. I used a Gel stain as my first coat. It's just what I had on hand.
circle in several passes.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 6

 1

1. As a 2nd coat for a darker finish, this was a walnut transtint dye. No
strategy here, just something dark.

Step 3: Attach the Surface and Base

Measure in from the sides of your base to help establish where the top surface needs to sit and make some light
marks for your reference.

Use ample glue and position the top and base together.

Use some boards as clamping cauls to spread the pressure and get your clamps on!

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 7

Step 4: Game Lines and Center Pegs

Game lines: to align and clamp a board that I could use to ride my
router against. I carefully held my router tight against
Using our router jig from before, we can now route in the board and cut the lines, but this was tense, as any
very shallow channels to serve as the game boundary small slip of your hand will show.
lines. I did this to expose the contrast of the dark
board surface, but you could color these channels Center pegs:
dark if you left the top surface a light color.
Some boards use small screws surrounded by rubber
I considered using a v-bit but decided to try a 1/16" bumpers as the pegs. I chose to use wooden dowels.
straight bit. This is a very shallow cut made using the Use the printed guide and align it with the board. Use
12", 8" and 4" markings on our jig. a punch or nail to mark each peg location and drill the
dowel holes. To help drill these correctly, I first drilled
You could simply use a permanent marker held in the a small guide at each mark, then used a board that
jig and draw the lines on as well. had been drilled vertically on my drill press as a guide
to drill all the way through the board. At this point, you
For the straight edges, I used the center of the can also finish drilling the center hole through.
octagon sides and center of the board as references

1. V or straight bits would work.

2
1

1. Cutting the straight edges. I'm holding the router very tightly against the
edge here, any small slips off the reference board will show.
2. Reference board clamped as an edge for the router.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 8

 1
1

1. A full size printed guide provides peg placement. 1. Drilling starter holes at each mark. I felt safer creating starter holes
without the vertical guide in the way at first.

1
1

1. Using a vertical guide to complete the holes 1. Now we can finish drilling the center hole with the 1-3/8 forstner bit.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 9

Step 5: Walls and Finish

Walls: Even with this you may have some gaps, but a bit of
sawdust and glue mix can fill the gaps if needed.
For the outer walls of the board, I cut a shallow dado
in some walnut that would match the 3/4 ply used for Center hole:
the base. The overall height just needs to reach a bit
above the inner playing surface to catch discs being Use 1/4 or 1/2" ply glued to the underside with a ~10"
knocked off the surface. diameter radius if you used dowels like me. If not the
radius can be just enough to glue and cover the
This is a good case where it's better to cut each piece bottom of the center hole. Use something heavy to
individually rather than assuming you can cut them all hold it in place for ~30 minutes while the glue dries.
at once, the fit will be better if you take the time for
each one. Finish:

Make your first cut on the trim piece, set at 22.5 I used some brush on poly to finish the board, giving
degrees, then place it on the board and mark where it 3 coats to build a bit of finish. This did not fill in the
the next cut needs to be. Cut this piece apply glue rings, but the slight dip of the rings has not affected
and a few pin nails will hold it in place while the glue the gameplay so it doesn't matter. I lightly sanded
sets. Cut the trim for the next section, line it up, mark with a high grit between coats and finished the board
and cut and repeat the process. with wax for a very smooth playing surface.

1
1

1. 22.5 degree angle cut into the outer trim/ wall. 1. I preferred to fit and mark each section and work my way around the
board.

1. Testing the fit 1. Glue

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 1

1. Pin brads to hold the section in place while the glue dries.

1
1

1. Gluing the underside cover in the center. 1. Poly or other protective finish followed by wax for a smooth playing
surface.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 11

Step 6: Optional: Alternative Game Mode

The original Crokinole game can be played with 4 use.

people, but I was curious and interested in creating
some alternate games as well that could be done with To make the barriers I cut the openings identical,
2-4 people. except the center was a half-lap joint so they could
cross each other. Setting up stop blocks and cutting
One of the reasons I chose to use dowels was in both boards at the same time made the size of the
anticipation of creating variations that could be set up openings mirrored perfectly and the waste was cut
using the dowels as holding pins or to remove them. away with a hack saw, bandsaw or scroll saw. Holes
were drilled to match the distance of the dowel pins
One option I've tried is this idea of setting up and with a tight fit, it's a really stable board.
additional barriers on the game surface and trying to
place discs in your opponent's quadrant while I'll include some basic dimensions on the barriers I
keeping yours clear. You can also alternate the created in the PDF with this project.
scoring based on where the discs are when the game
ends, higher scores, for the more difficult areas. It's a What do you think? What other game modes would
fun variation, especially with 4 players working you try to create on a Crokinole board?
separately or as teams, each having 10 or 12 discs to

1
1

1. These barriers were my own idea as a way to try new and different 1. I used my cross cut sled and stop block to cut both boards at the same
game modes. time. Each cut was made, the board flipped and cut again for mirrored
openings.

1 2
1

1. The final half-lap joint was also cut in both boards, one "up" and one 1. The location of the holes needs to be as precise as possible to line up
"down" cut carefully until it was a good fit. with the board.
2. The waste areas can be cut with bandsaw, scroll saw, hack saw, dado
stack... many options.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 12

 1

1. Setting the dowels in the barrier and the board. 1. You can use one or both for different games.

Step 7: Final Photos and Thanks!

As a reminder, in the video on this project, I made game is super fun. If you ever make a board using
game discs as well. The process for doing so is some of these methods, please reach out and let me
difficult and time-consuming, so I didn't outline it here. know and I hope it brings your family hours of fun and
Just buy game discs, they are easy and pretty cheap laugher.
to order.
Cheers!
That said, I'm really happy with the board and the

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 13

Beautiful! Well done.

This is a great game to get the digital agers off-line for awhile! I love the wood you used. It'd
become a heritage game to pass onwards.
This board looks beautiful and sounds like a fun game :)

Thanks. Definitely is fun, hope you get to try it sometime

Great project and lots of tips on how to do the various stages. All in all, excellent.

Thanks

This is a gorgeous game board!

Many thanks!

Outstanding!

Thanks

Crokinole is a great game! Good for all the family since it doesn't depend on strength or knowledge
- kids and adults are equal! I have one and it makes a great Christmas present.
Totally agreed, my kids and their cousins love it. Thanks

Looks like the perfect project to try out some marquetry techniques on! If the inset rings begin to
give you trouble you could fill them with clear resin or even do the whole top, and then sand it back
smooth.
Ya, could create some amazing marquetry designs. I haven't had any issues with the rings, but
agreed, they could be filled pretty simply. Thanks for the suggestions.
Great looking board! How shallow are the channels you cut for the lines? Any discernible skipping
of the pieces when they cross?
Something like 1/16 shallow, but has never affected gameplay that I've seen.

Let's Make a Crokinole Board!: Page 14