Star Wars Themed Wedding Corn Hole Game.

I got married this year and me and my girlfriend (now wife) wanted to have some fun outdoor games to occupy the guests while we are off taking photos and all the other things that leave guests to their own devices.

We wanted games that were different and since in England Corn Hole isn't a popular or well known game i thought it was perfect.

So i started with a little research and got making.

Tools.

Sewing machine.

Tailors chalk or white pencil crayon

Pins

Ruler

knife or scissors.

kitchen scales.

Materials.

corn.

strong cotton material

There are probably more tools and materials that are needed and i have probably forgotten or missed them, so give the whole instructable a read through and then give it a go (if you're going to make it that is :) )

To make 4 bags you will need 8 squares of fabric at 178mm x 178mm (7inch x 7inch)

pin two squares together and draw a line 12.5mm (half inch) in from three of the edges.

sew along the three sides you have drawn on.

then sew another line around the fabric closer to the edge of the fabric. i kept the edge of the sewing machine dog along the line of the first sew line.

turn the whole thing right side out.

In my research i found numerous things to fill your bags with, and due to cost and availability i went with corn.

I also know that corn can become ground down during play and that the dust (for some people) is needed for the game but i decided to put a plastic bag inside the fabric bag.(as with it being England the weather isnt always predictable and wet corn is a recipe for mold and not fun things)

In each of the plastic freezer bags i added 400g of the corn and removed all the air as to lessen the chance of the bag bursting when thrown.

then put the plastic bag inside the fabric bag.

fold the open edge of the fabric inside and pin the edge together then sew the open side of the fabric bag closed, i ran along the opening twice to strengthen it.

do this 3 more times with the same colour and then 4 times with a different colour.

Then you will have 8 bags for throwing :)

Tools.

hand saw.

miter block

sand paper / electric sander.

hand held jig saw.

drill

hammer

screwdriver

fast clamps.

clamps

paint rollers and tray

ruler/tape measure

Materials.

nails

screws

bolts and nuts

nylon rope

chest clasp

wood. (wood sheet 1220mm x 607mm 6mm thick) x2

wood batten ( 2400mm x 75mm x 47mm) x4 it might be sensible to get a couple more in case you mess up :)

wood filler

wood glue

paint

i googled corn hole game boards and found so many plans and instructions for the dimensions etc.

so i sketched up some plans for how i was going to make the boards.

page 1 of 6 in the sketch book: These are the dimensions that i found online. the main board is 24inch by 48inch with a 6inch hole with a center 9inches down and 12inches from the sides.

The sides of the board were to be 4 inches deep and the rear of the board had to be 12inches off the floor.

page 2 of 6 in the sketch book: This page is my design for fixing the two halves together so they can be stored and packed as one.

page 3 of 6 in the sketch book: inside of the board with the location notch design. also a little sketch of the fabric for the bags.

page 4 of 6 in the sketch book: All the measurements have been converted to mm as that's how wood is sold in the uk.

page 5 of 6 in the sketch book: cross section of the board on top of the wood battening.

page 6 of 6 in the sketch book: the plans and dimensions change ever so slightly as the timber yard supplied the wood board at 607mm x 1220mm when the original plan was 609mm x 1219mm so the board changes by a couple of mm at each side.

In this step we will be using the MDF sheet and the wood battening.

Cut 4 lengths of the wood at the length of the long sides of the MDF board (1220mm)

clamp two of the wood lengths to the MDF board in place and measure the space between the two wood batons, cut four batons to that length and clamp them onto the MDF board.

Drill two small pilot holes through the long lengths into the end of the short lengths and the glue and screw the joints together. then you will have the frame at the same size of the board, time to screw them together.

using small self tapping wood panel screws screw the center of the top then the bottom then the sides, alternating around the board making sure that all the edges were aligned before starting.

at this point you will have to repeat this again for the second board.

Measure in half way from the long side of the board and down 228mm from the top, this will be the middle of the hole. if you have a 6inch hole saw or drill bit use that as it will be easier than using a jigsaw.

once you have your center mark use a pair of compasses or make a circle drawing jig like i did. the size of the hole needed is 152mm so half that and measure that and draw a line that long onto a bit of thin wood or card. put a nail at one end of the line and drill a hole the right size for just the lead of a pencil to poke through and there you have a make-shift circle drawing tool. :)

once you have marked the right sized circle get a drill bit that is large enough that the blade of your jigsaw will fit through.

Drill a hole inside the circle and a little way away from the line, once you have got the hole, insert your jigsaw blade in the hole and slowly and carefully cut round the hole line, its probably best to cut just inside the line unless you are very confident you wont make a mistake when cutting.

when you have cut out both holes carefully sand up to the line and make the circle nice and smooth and round.

I didn't take many photos of this stage as i forgot. sorry, but i will try and explain as well as i can.

once you have the board framed up and the hole cut its time to start on the legs of the board.

as in the plans i sketched up the back top edge of the board needs to be 304mm off the ground.

to achieve this i turned the whole board up side down and made a mark about twice as far as the baton is wide (so in my case the baton is 89mm wide so i made a mark 178mm along the side.)

at that distance (178mm) i marked the side baton at half the height of the wood (89mm high so around 44.5mm) and drilled a hole big enough for the bolts to fit through, in my case it was a 10mm hole.

now take some of the batonn that you have left and make a mark in the center of one end the same distance from all three of the close edges, again in my case it was 44.5mm from each edge of one of the ends of the baton.

i then cut an angle on each corner of the leg at the end of the hole to enable the rotation of the leg when unfolding them.

Slide the bolt you have through the hole in the board frame and then through the hole in the leg. (this is the slightly tricky part) to get the right height you could do some complex maths or you could do what i did.

Again, with the whole board up side down unfold the leg so it is resting on the top cross beam of the frame of the corn hole board, when it is resting there get a long ruler (longer than 12inch) and attach it to the leg so that the 0 of the ruler is at the point you want to be at 12inches off the ground later on. now use a long bit of wood, i used one of my spare batons, place one end of it at the bottom of the board and hold the other end up to the ruler making sure that the distance where it crosses the leg at an angle is 12inches, draw a line at this point and cut the leg at this point. (this is confusing so take a look at the 3rd image, i did a little sketch to try and explain it, i hope it does)

copy the leg three more times so you have a total of four legs, two for each board.

something that doesn't need a whole step but the location notch is just a piece of the baton that is cut to 150mm long and screwed into the inside of the top of the board in the middle. (see the last picture.)

once you get all the parts cut and assembled its time to sand and prime the whole lot.

first of fill the screw holes on the front and sides with wood filler. once the filler has dried sand it flat.

Then sand everything! all the surfaces and parts of the corn hole board.

once you have sanded it all nice and smooth clean off all the dust and get to painting!

remove all the movable parts (legs, just the legs really.) and start painting everything. giving the whole lot a good couple of coats of primer. i went with white as its a nice base to start with as its easy to paint over with any colour.

Applying the catches on the sides of the boards is quite simple.

put one board face down and place the second board on top of it face up, line up the edges and corners of the boards are lined up.

Then take the trunk catches and place them where you want them to go, i did two on each of the long sides, as the location blocks on the top of each board will keep them from slipping up and down.

Put a little mark through the screw holes of each catch, then drill a small pilot hole for each screw.

Once all the pilot holes have been drilled you can now screw the catches on to the boards.

The handle of the board is going to be made from some rope of some sort, i used some nice white soft nylon rope.

Cut 1m of rope in half giving you two lengths of 500mm these will be your two handles.

on the corn hole boards measure to the middle of the right hand long side. then measure 75mm either side of the middle and those will be the where to drill the holes for the rope to go through.

Make sure the holes you drill for the handles are big enough for the rope to be threaded through.

once you have threaded the rope through the holes tie a big knot on one end and apply some glue to make sure it doesn't come undone.

Then with the two boards together get a feel of how long you want the handles to be to make it comfortable for you to carry, this will change with different people. once you have the length right tie another knot at the point where the rope comes out the inside of the board and add glue to secure the knot.

When it came to decorate the boards i decided i would draft up a few ideas. Using illustrator i drew up some designs.

Out of the three designs we went with the middle design as it fit with our feelings for the wedding best. As we were getting married on May the fourth and we were having a Star Wars thread running through our wedding we wanted to include our fandom of Star wars into the Corn Hole games.

So using a little projector connected to my iPad i projected the design onto the side of the corn hole board . using the edges of the design to align it with the board, also the hole in the board was useful in getting the scale correct as i had drawn the hole in the designs.

Then using a fine pencil and a lot of patience and a steady hand i out lined all of the art work.

I did the design in three stages as i kept the projector close to the board as i found when i moved to too far away the design did some funny warping, so with the projector close i couldn't get all the design on the board in one go. I kept it at around 6ft and level. (not pointing the projector up or down, keeping the projector centered on the board and parallel to the ground and the board.)

once i had outlined it all in pencil i filled the symbol and text on black. It was a time consuming stage, you have to take time and be careful and be as neat as possible. i made a couple of mistakes (i dipped my hand in a some paint and smudged it, this can be corrected by painting over the mistake with the white primer again.)

once the black has dried (to stop more smudging) i got a set of fine to medium point marker pens and went over the outlines of the scrolls. i was going to do this with paint but decided to use a marker as it was easier to get a nice line from the markers.

Once you have the board finished its time to play.

I had to wait until my wedding before i could play the game, I was worried that i wouldn't have time to play on my wedding day as I Would be to busy ... you know getting married. On the big day I did get a bit of time to play the game.

People were playing it until it was far far to dark to play but that just proves people enjoyed the game.

All in all it went down really well and i really enjoyed playing the game, we will keep it and it will have memories of the game being played at our wedding and we will also try and play it again when we have chances to get it out so it will be used very often.

I enjoyed making this and it was a fun thing to research and learn all about the game.