Bit's and Bob's Rustic Bagatelle Game.

The Bagatelle idea came from my Mother, It just came up in conversation one day, back in the day it was all they had to play with, and she used to love it, so with that to spur me on I thought I would have a go at making one.

The difference being is with this Bit's and Bob's Rustic Bagatelle is that its made mainly with components which were going to be burned, or just thrown in the skip.

To the build we go:

5mm Plywood off-cut

roofing battens

Panel pins or nails 20mm

Electrical mini trunking lid

Green paint

Hammer

Paint brushes

CA Glue

Hot Glue

Battery drill

Forstner bit

Sandpaper

Electric Jig-Saw

Looking at images of this game I thought I would go with the Vintage style of game and the placement of the nails for scoring purposes.

So looking around I had a small off-cut of 5mm Plywood, little wonder this off-cut was never used, its got to be the cheapest plywood ever.

The guy next door gave me quite some time ago some what you would call roofing battens, these are cut diagonally down the full length, I thought I could use the narrower end to create a slope for the playing surface, these have been stored under my shed for at least 2 years! and would probably have been burned otherwise( I had to make the board higher in the end anyway, so the slope didn't matter), for the rail around the perimeter, I had a piece of electrical mini trunking, I will use the lid, and for the surround, a piece of worktop edging strip, left over from when our kitchen which was was fitted 10 years ago:))

So with these bit's and bob's lets see if we can make a Bagatelle!

After cutting the roofing battens to the length required I ran the battens through the router along with a sanding just to make the edges look neater, I just glued and nailed these on with Panel pins, ensuring that the heads were flush with the surface, with this part complete I then thought how I could cut the radius?? I should have cut this prior to nailing the battens!:((

I used a nail and a piece of string, with a marker to mark out a suitable radius from a centre point and cut this with a jig saw, it was a bit of a struggle really cutting through the battens but got there in the end, the jigsaw made a mess of the plywood but sanding it made it look a lot better and the edge wouldn't be seen because of the guide rail for the ball to travel around.

What I needed was something fairly flexible and which wouldn't crease when formed around the Radius, initially looking around my shed and garage there was nothing jumping out at me, then looking up I spotted a piece of Mini electrical trunking which had been up there forever, would the lid off this be suitable?

It would form a hoop using the facing side to the Inside of the radius but the other way round it creased, so really using the facing side is great because it's a smooth surface.

I was going to use hot glue to secure this in position, but opted for a thick CA Glue, and using this with Activator I spotted the Rail around the full perimeter, the plastic was that flimsy I couldn't use clamps so I just held in place until the glue cured then moved to the next section.

I trimmed off the overlap with a dremel with cutting disc, and filed the edges clean.

I used the same trunking lid to create a rectangular space for the playing steel balls, and also this formed the bottom of the playing area.

I cut a diagonal length of thin timber off-cut for the trough or ball chute and this was glued into place using CA Glue.

Time to make a Steel Ball shooter:

Thinking cap on again I needed to form some type of a Ball shooter for the game, Ideally I would have liked a steel rod for the plunger but none available so all I had was a short off-cut of 6mm Dowel, due to not having anything like a 6.1 drill for clearance, I decided to sand the dowel down to 5mm I did this using the lathe to spin it up and sanded the length, I cut the end off a wooden spoon for the tip of the plunger, and drilled this using the lathe, and for the Knob I used a Piece of Broom/Brush shaft, this was also drilled on the lathe and a light sanding had it looking more like a knob, I Used CA glue to glue the tip on, I will Glue the knob on when everything is in position.

I used a piece of Oak floorboard to make 2 drilled blocks, the drill was a 4.9mm with a wiggle, tweaking all 3 items until everything felt smooth.

I Glued the first block in position, tried the plunger through it, was a smooth operation, I tweaked the 2nd Block and held in place with a finger until satisfied everything ran smoothly, this was also glued in position.

The plunger could now be inserted and it all felt good, I had a box of assorted springs an chose a compression spring, the diameter was bigger but should be ok, this was then inserted onto the shaft, and located into the blocks, I tried it without the knob and it shot the Ball shooter around the perimeter so it should work, I repositioned the shooter with a slight bit of compression and glued the knob on with CA glue, Time to test with a 12mm steel ball.

The first shot had the ball travelling around the perimeter in good fashion, which was awesome, the ball shooter works really well.

To stop the ball travelling all way around the perimeter, a Panel pin is placed close to the rail at the end of the radius, this was just tapped in until flush with the top of the rail, I re-positioned this a couple of time until it felt as though it was in a good position to play the game, I won't really know this until all the nails are in position for the scoring.

Onto the layout of the board:

The Bagatelle game utilises semi circles and nails to outline the scoring areas, the score is higher the harder it is for the ball to access that scoring area.

I marked a centre line between the outer edge of the ball outlet and the far side rail, then in equal increments marked out semi circles with a compass, then I did the same for the outer holes.

With all these areas mapped out I can now concentrate on knocking some nails in, there are also some holes mentioned earlier where the ball can sit in to score points, these are strategically placed to optimise point scoring, The holes are not drilled all the way through but the plywood is only 5mm so I will need blocks behind them to drill into, not too deep, we have to retrieve the ball as well.

With all areas marked out it was time to knock in some nails:

I had some 20mm Panel pin nails left over from a recent string art project and these will do nicely for the ball catching areas.

I initially held the nail between first finger and thumb, and gently taped the nails home, not a good idea and could lead to injury so I opted for long nosed pliers to hold the nail, this worked well and progress albeit tedious was made.

The final finish.

I was going to leave the playing surface as it was and just coat with Linseed oil, but after sanding it had started to lift the top surface of the very cheap plywood making it patchy in places, so I'm going to use some dark green chalkboard paint I had from an earlier project and then some sticky back numbers for the scoring areas, this albeit rustic will look a lot better than the original finish.

With the plywood only being 5mm depth the nails are poking through the underside of the wood, I didn't have any more wood to box it in so I've opted for hot glue, a bead of this over the nails should stop any unsuspecting hands/fingers from getting injured, not the best solution but its not seen anyway.

A couple of coats of the green blackboard paint and it covered even the white trunking lid which is good.

The final job is just to apply some numbers to the scoring area, the numbers I had are small self adhesive 1 to 100 so 100 is the Individual highest score.

I found out that there wasn't enough of an incline on the board so I made some risers to raise it up further, these are screwed in place with a screw and screw cup for each side.

I had a bit of a Faff finding out the best area for the rebound pin, (Incidentally, I slid some heats shrink over the nail to give a better rebound for the steel ball), this is the first pin the ball hits as it shoots round the table, its quite important where this is sited if its not right it will render areas of the table out of reach, but it left a few unwanted holes to deal with, a few spots of CA glue and a sanding had this looking a lot better:((

How the shooter trigger is used is quite important as well, a gentler shot brings the ball down the right hand side of the table, whereas a full on punt sometimes sends the ball around the table and back from whence it came, which is not a foul, just retake the shot.

All in all a nice little project to have a mess with, It's made with virtually nothing, Offcut of plywood, 3no sharp ends of some diagonally cut roofing battens which the neighbour gave years ago and some electrical trunking lid, for the main part, some panel pins and green paint to finish, and steel balls of course.

Not sure about the rules of this game, But I think you get nine balls per player and if any balls go to the bottom of the play area without scoring then those balls are out of play, It's a bit of fun at the end of the day.

Hope you enjoyed this Instructable and thanks for looking.