One of the projects I worked on this summer was a Crokinole Board. You might be familiar with Crokinole as it is a game thought to be invented in Canada in the 1800’s. The World Championship Crokinole Games are held every year in Tavistock Ontario. If you are not familiar with the game but would like to know more, please consult my friends at ChatGPT or Wikipedia.
The playing surface is a circle 26 inches in diameter. On it are marked 3 concentric circles of radius 4 inches, 8 inches, and 12 inches. In the centre there is a hole of diameter 1 3/8 inches and depth 5/16 inches. The annular region between the two outer circles is divided into 4 quadrants.
Usually 2 players play, but up to 4 players can play at once making 2 teams of 2 players. Each player or team gets 12 disks. Mine are red and white. From the outer edge a player flicks a disk toward the centre. A disk landing in the centre hole scores 20 points and is removed from the board. When the game ends disks in the innermost circle score 15 points, in the middle circle 10 points and in the outermost circle 5 points. During the game the object is to score as many points as possible but in each turn, if there are disks from the opposing player on the board, you must hit one of them. If you do not hit one of then, your disk is removed from the board. The best shots are the ones that knock the opponent’s disk off the board while leaving yours on the board close to the centre. All this is complicated by the presence of 8 pins placed around the inner circle. If there are no opponent pieces on the board when taking a shot, it is called a free shot and you try to get your disk in the centre hole.
So why did I make a board? Well, we went to Ottawa in June to visit Kathy’s brother Pat and his partner Sharon. Pat makes things and his specialty is guitars. (Look up Pat Hawley Guitars on Google.) He had made a Crokinole Board out of Padauk, an African hardwood. I was impressed with the workmanship and glad to be re-introduced to a game I had not played since I was 10 years old, and I was delighted to learn that it is a Canadian game. I knew right then that I was going to make one too.
After returning home I looked at my wood supply. The only species I had enough of was oak and that came to me a couple of years ago from my friend’s sister Mary. She gave me an oak headboard. I stored it in the basement for a while, and then about a year ago I cut it up into usable pieces of wood. There was enough to make the playing surface and the edging around the octagonal base.
(Ed. Note: Below is a very detailed description of exactly how the crokinole board was made. I got lost in the mathematics of it all, but I decided to leave it all in just in case some of you might be interested. If you are not, it’s okay to skip to the end.)
To make the playing surface:
- I cut 7 pieces of oak 28 inches long, 4 inches wide, and 1 inch thick
- I edge joined these 7 pieces together to make a square 28 inches by 28 inches.
- Then I drilled a 1/4 inch hole in the centre and placed a dowel in the hole.
- Using a 1/4 inch straight cutting bit in my router, with the router fixed on a trammel 13 inches from the centre hole, I placed that hole over the 1/4 inch dowel and cut a circle from the oak rectangle. This circle was exactly 26 inches in diameter.
- I sanded the surface smooth and flat, checking the flatness frequently with a straight edge. A big surface planer or a big drum sander would have been better. I have both those tools but not big enough for this job.
- I was concerned about how to draw or mark the circles. I had seen a number of YouTube videos where guys were using a router to dig out a groove making the circles and then later filling the groove with something to contrast with the playing surface. That seemed like a lot of unnecessary work to me. So I put on one coat of polyurethane to seal the wood. Then I made a compass out of a piece of wood with a hole for the centre that would fit over the 1/4 inch dowel and smaller holes at the 4 inch, 8 inch and 12 inch marks. I inserted a black Sharpie into these holes (one at a time of course), put the compass on the centre dowel and drew the circles. Worked perfectly.
- Then I used a framing square to mark the 4 quadrants.
- The 8 holes for the pegs around the inner circle were a bit of a problem. The first one has to be offset from the quadrant axis by 22.5°. That measurement is gotten by bisecting the 90° angle between the quadrant axis, and then bisecting one of the resulting 45° angles. Once the first mark on the circle is located the remaining marks can be located using a geometer’s compass set at a length equal to the length of a chord of the 4 inch circling subtending a 45° angle at the centre. If done right you get 8 equally spaced marks around the circle. Then I used a 3/16 inch drill bit to drill the holes for the pegs.
- The centre hole is drilled using a 1 3/8 inch Forstner bit. It has to be deep enough so that the disk will drop in but not so deep that it is hard to get the disk out, I chose 5/16 inches deep.
- Finally 4 more coats of polyurethane, sanding between coats with 220 grit sanding pad and ending with a wax polish.
Now the base …
- The base can be round or octagonal – it is a matter of preference. If round it should be 30 inches in diameter. This provides a 2-inch gutter when the playing surface is mounted. If octagonal it should be such that a 30-inch circle can be inscribed in the octagon. I chose octagonal.
- My plan was to paint the base, so I did not need any fancy wood. Paint grade plywood would be sufficient. I did not have enough plywood on hand to make the base. What I did have was an old piece of plywood from a telephone booth when they used to be made of plywood. It is probably 60 years old, maybe more. It was 98 inches long and 8 inches wide, and 3/4 inches thick – just enough for 8 segments. Then I cut 8 isosceles trapezoid shaped pieces with acute angles both equal to 67.5° and then edge joined (with glue) those pieces into an octagon.
- As a decorative skirt around the outside of the octagon I cut pieces of oak (again from Mary’s headboard) into strips 12 inches by 2 inches by 3/4 inch. I cut a 3/4-inch dado along the length of each piece 1/4 inch from the edge. Each end of these was cut at 67.5° and trimmed as needed to fit around the edges of the octagon.
- After sanding I put three coats of urethane on the oak edging, one coat of primer on the plywood, then three coats of red paint on the plywood, and finally one coat of polyurethane over the red paint.
- I attached the playing surface to the base using 8 – 1 1/4 inch screws.
- The last step was to install the pins. They were just screwed in place.
I bought the disks, one package in red, the other package in white, and the pins from Amazon.
It was an interesting but fairly difficult project to make. I think it would be easier to make the whole thing out of plywood and use a circular base. I regret not making the edge skirt a little higher. It is needed to prevent hard shots from leaving the table. Mine is just marginally higher than the playing surface. Surprisingly it catches most but not all shots.
It took about 3 weeks to make – just doing a bit from time to time. It kept me off the streets and out of trouble.