Something that we stress at Whetstone is to do things with excellence and I take it a bit further in the wood shop. I encourage the boys to “be willing to sign their name to what they’ve built”. That is something my dad instilled in me and I tried to pass on the message to my three sons.

So when my middle son asked me to build a Corn Hole game for the college where he works, I jumped at the opportunity. Since it was for him and York College, I gave them a ridiculous price for it but I still needed to do my best work. Normally the game sets that I have seen are made of heavy materials that sometimes require two people to carry. Collin told me that the girls at the school would want to play so that was who I designed the game for. I also wanted it to make a statement about the work that I like to do so it needed to show some pride in workmanship. At first I was going to set it up so that the surface would clip into the frame but in the end decided to attach them. York Nebraska also is a fairly high humidity area so I wanted weather resistant woods that would last with some minimal care involved.

I made the base from 1″x 4″ Redwood since it would be in contact with the wet grass or on the concrete. Dovetailed corners and through mortise and tenon joints keep the base strong and square.

 

To keep the game surface light weight, I used Eastern White pine with Black Walnut breadboard ends with Oak dowels to keep everything flat. I installed a 1″ x 1/4″ Oak spline help keep the two pieces of pine together and give some reinforcement.

This was a fun project and for a good cause.

 

Thanks for perusing,

 

Gary