King Size Cribbage Board

We're BIG fans of Cribbage at my house - So I was inspired by the Go Big Challenge to make a Cribbage board that takes up almost the entire dinner table and instead of tiny pegs that seem to always be missing the game uses bottles and cans as game markers!

My version is over 3 times as tall and 6 times as wide as a "standard" cribbage board!

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Tape Measure

Plywood - I'm using 1/2" (12mm) baltic birch plywood because I had some leftover, you can use whatever you have just make sure it's at least 1/2" or so thick.

1/8" Downcut Bit - I used this bit to cut out the perimeter of the project. This could also be done with a tablesaw or skillsaw.

Radius bit - I used a 3/4" bit with a 3/8" radius (19mm x 9.5mm R). A straight bit would also work fine, I just like the rounded edges.

60 degree v bit - Used to carve the text and the lines every 5 points. These could also be drawn on by hand (use something other than a sharpie, the ink will bleed into the woodgrain)

CNC router - I'm lucky and have access to a CNC, don't worry a handheld router will also work (sample template attached in next step).

Dust collection - I use a shop vac attached to a 3D printed cyclone separator.

Wood filler - The plywood I have ended up with some nasty voids that needed to be filled.

*One void was so bad I also had to use the ol' glue and sawdust trick (good instructable on this technique).

Acrylic paint - Acrylic paint doesn't bleed into the grain like spray paint will.

Paint brush - I'm using a cheap detail brush.

Blowtorch - WAY faster than painting! Possibly more satisfying too...

Sander and sandpaper - Yes, we have to sand, sigh.

Clearcoat or Poly to seal it - I used clearcoat this time because it dries faster and I was impatiently waiting to play!

Misc fasteners if you're going to secure it under your table like I did*

Eye protection - You have it, use it, stuff in your eye is never fun.

Ear protection - Use what you have, but the 3M worktunes are still one of my favorite tool accessories.

Two aluminum cans for one player.

Two plastic bottles or cups for the other player.

Deck of cards

Elastic cord

Late adds, AKA stuff that came up along the way:

Drill

1/4" and 1/2" drill bits

4' long aluminum L channel

Impact driver

Wood screws

*Note: My posts may contain affiliate links to products I use and feel comfortable sharing. Which means when you click the marked product links in my post nothing changes on your end, and I earn a small % on qualifying purchases. Thank you for your support!*

So this thing is going to be pretty big right? And I'm sure I'm not alone in my constant battle to fight clutter and stay organized so lets plan where this thing is going to live before we get started.

My first thought was to just flip over the top of the dining table and carve directly onto that, I mean how many fasteners does a tabletop really use right?

Turns out it had 3 different kinds of fasteners and bracing attached to the top and the sides plus some other hardware for the drawers that I underestimated... So yeah, that turned into a bigger project than I wanted to get "permission" for (still haven't told Wiferneer what's about to happen at this point, shhhh) so lets have a think on this one. Also, we like cribbage, but I don't feel I like it enough to look at it every day so carving the top of the table is out 😁.

Next thought was to have it as like a skin we could put on the table. A sticker, fabric something like that?

Sticker is out because it's too permanent. And I'm likely to smoosh up or knock off a piece of fabric while playing so we need something sturdier.

What if we still made it out of wood but mounted it under the table?! 🤔 Wood that work? Lets try it!

I measured the underside of the table (doggo "helped" 😘) at 26.5" x 48" and the diameter of a can (2.7") to do a rough layout (rectangular pattern in Fusion 360) with can sized holes and looks like it will work! Lets see if we can refine it and make it look more "cribbage-y."

I got it to a layout that looked like what I was after, but we had to make a few compromises.

• There's no way to fit 3 rows on, so this is a 2 player game
• While 121 holes will "technically" fit, it just ends up looking like a grid and not a cribbage board. So we're going to have to lap the board 3 times.
• I did include markers so you can keep your opponent honest about what lap they're on!
• There's no room for keeping score, we'll use a notepad if it gets that serious
• There's also no room for a third peg, but that's for keeping score so the previous bullet kinda solved that...

All good, lets get the text on the board and get the file loaded into the CNC software. Preview looks good, lets do this!

(I've also included a .dxf file for a router template to make the 2.7 inch diameter holes. It is specific to my Bosch Colt router but I've also included the sketch showing how I made the template.)

Lets Go! This is my favorite part of the project, seeing the design come from the computer into real life.

Load the .svg from step 1 into your CNC software and set the parameters. I know they can vary from machine to machine, here's my settings for reference:

• 1/8" downcut bit is a through cut around the perimeter. I used 160 in/min, 35 in/min plunge and .125 DOC (depth of cut).
• Radius bit is a 1/4" (6mm) deep cut for all the pockets. I used 120 in/min, 15 in/min plunge and .125 DOC.
• V bit is used for the text and lines and is also set to a 1/4" (6mm) deep cut. This used the same settings as the radius bit.

I secured the plywood to my workbed with wood screws in an area I knew wouldn't get cut (spoiler - I initially planned to attach the gameboard to the table with screws)

Next I fired up the machine, put on my eyes and ears and then turned on the dust collection. Time to let 'er rip! Overall the cut went fine, but I found out why this board was in the offcut pile - It has some serious voids that will need to get repaired in the next step. Also, the bottom of the "8" in "80" blew apart and the machine sucked up the piece so we'll need to address that too... But that's future me's problem, for now we cut something and didn't crash or break anything! Go team!

***CNC specific discussion/side quest below, feel free to skip ahead if you'd like***

While we still have everything setup and secured, I've been wanting to experiment a little and this is a perfect example so lets take a tangent for a side quest on stepover %. If you've CNC'd much before you might already be familiar, but if you're not stepover is the amount of "overlap" the bit does on each pass. CNC cookbook has a good article on it here if you'd like to read more https://www.cnccookbook.com/cnc-stepover/

With the radius bit, you can see in the second to last picture there are some significant ridges left. The default stepover in my program is 40%. This usually works fine for bits with flat-ish cutting tips, and until now I've typically only had a few holes in projects that were easy to sand out. But I'm not sanding 80+ holes by hand, It's time to make Richard the Robot do some of the work.

In order to cut down on my sanding time, I tried 20%, 10% and 5% stepover. In the last picture of this step I think it clearly shows the difference. 5% looked great, but would take forever. 20% wasn't quite good enough for what I wanted on this project, so I settled on 10% and I'm pretty happy with the results. This was a fun tangent and I'm looking forward to applying it to some 3D carving tests I have planned for "when I get time..."

-Side note, the V carving for the text and the lines was done with a 1% stepover. Which makes sense since the V bit comes to a sharp point.

OK, geek out over. Not that it was a full geek out but it was fun to play with and actually be able to see what impact the change had on the piece.

This step always seems to take the longest but pays off in the end.

First, the voids need to be fixed. I used wood filler to get most of them but the larger blowout was too big and needed a mix of glue/sawdust to fill the whole (hole?!) thing.

While the filler dried I painted the lines and text with black acrylic paint. Details like this go pretty quick but I definitely wouldn't want to paint the whole board this way. For the "8" since the lower part of the cutout was MIA, instead of trying to figure out how to cut another one, I carefully painted around the bottom part. Hopefully if I make another one of these I end up with a better piece of wood that doesn't have so many freaking voids (I do think this was a one off bad batch, I usually don't have this many issues with the columbia forest products plywood).

Glue/filler is still drying so I did a quick test fit - looks good!

Next, we need some contrast between the rows of dots. First I attempted to use wood stain but that was going to be a hot mess, the top layer of this plywood actually sucked the stain from the bottom layers... So what do we do now? We Burninate! I got my torch and hit each hole for a few seconds to give it a nice "rustic" look. This worked great and went way faster (and it was kinda fun!). Video shows how fast it goes in real time.

Alright, everything is dry now. Time to sand... I love sanding. I love it so much I didn't get a picture of it. You know what sanding looks like. I started at 120 grit and ended at 220. Be sure to get the edges and corners, we don't want splinters while handling the gameboard.

Sanding didn't actually take that long, I just like complaining about it 😁. Next step is to seal the board to give it a nice purdy look and so none of the char from our burninating rubs off. I used spray on clear coat because it dries fast. Polyurethane would also work great. Two medium-ish heavy coats (alternate sides so you get into the edges better) did the trick. Now we gotta wait for an hour to let it dry enough to handle.

Once dry, time to admire it!

Admiring it didn't last long, I realized I'd forgotten to add holes for the elastic that will keep the cards in place. Sigh. (.SVG file in the second step has been updated to include these holes) Get the drill. I used a 1/4" drill bit and then looped the elastic through the holes. Once the tension was good and would hold the deck of cards I tied the elastic in a knot to keep it in place. Once I'd sniped the ends off I realized the knots would keep the board from laying flat on the table... Untie the elastic, go get the drill again, this time I used a 1/2" bit to counterbore the back of the hole so the knot in the elastic would nest inside it and the board would now sit flat.

I think that's it?! Can we play now please?

Nope, not time to play yet. We need to be able to put our toys away when we're done playing with them.

So... My initial plan was to screw the game board into the diagonal braces on the table. Everything even lined up really well to execute this option, it's almost like I'd planned ahead! (Am I getting better at working with me?!?!?).

But then. Wiferneer reminded me that sometimes I can be, ahem, bad at putting things away but I am good at loosing things like screws. Good point. We need a plan 2.

Plan 2 turned out to be a good one! If we mount some thin boards between the legs we can just slide the cribbage board in and out! No screws or tools needed! So technically we should back up a few steps to layout and details but we're so close I'm just going to do a quick measure, paint the sliders black and get them screwed in place so we can FINALLY play this thing I've been working on for what feels like FOREVER now!

Well, we'll call it plan 2.1, all the wood that would (wood) be the right size is spoken for on another project that's in work... So instead of robbing Peter, I looked a little harder and found some leftover aluminum L channels that were already cut to nearly the perfect size and had holes in the right spots. So I hit them with the sander to clean them up, found an appropriate size spacer block and screwed them to the table. And it WORKS! Lets Play!

One. More. Thing. You should replace the missing screw while were here or else it'll never get done. Sigh, fine, you're right. I raided the random fastener bin and found a suitable screw/washer and drove it home.

That's it, we're playing now. Don't argue with me, you, um me? Right, its game time!

FINALLY!!!

OK, pull out the King Size Cribbage Board from under the table and set it down. Dang that works well!

Raid the fridge for two bottles and two can2. Or if you don't have any bottles/cans you can use two different cups or pocket change or get creative.

Put a bottle top in one side of the 40 and the tab off one of the cans in the other side pocket.

Pull the deck of cards out of its home.

Have an argument about who's going to be dealer, settle said argument with a game of paper, rock, scissor.

Probably not a bad idea to review the official rules, because as much as I want a run of 4 to be a 6 point "double run" it's actually only worth 4...

Deal the cards and off we go!

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Note: My posts may contain affiliate links. Which means when you click the product links in my Instructable nothing changes on your end, and I earn a small % on qualifying purchases. Thank you for your support!