Revenge of the Great Cornholio

Field-testing, for the first time, the Colts cornhole boards I made for my father-in-law in the sub-zero weeks before Christmas. The event was the shared birthday party my in-laws held for my kids, now aged 21 and 25. Time marches on.

Santa's Magical Cornhole Shop Pt. 2

The set of cornhole boards I did for my father-in-law, still drying on Christmas morning. Early in the season, when the Colts were doing terribly, I thought my father-in-law, a die-hard fan, would be dead of a heart attack by now. Thankfully Peyton recovered, and so did my wife's dad.

Santa's Magical Cornhole Shop (Pt. 1)

Santa found out Friday that his brother-in-law was going to visit before Christmas instead of after, so this set of cornhole boards--supposed to be the last off of the assembly line--became the first, with a flurry of late-night sanding and painting. It was nine degrees this morning when Santa went out to the garage to touch up the paint. A last look before they went on the sleigh and over to the in-laws.

For I Am The Great Cornholio

I'm probably opening myself up to a lot of bad google searches, but as longtime readers know I try to offer a plethora of helpful information. Here I am showing how I built a cornhole board set. When I was a kid, this used to be called "beanbag toss." Somehow, at least in this great midwest, it has become known as "cornhole" and is now sweeping the heartland. I have seen a lot of people playing it in their backyards, on camping trips, etc., and I was like, I should get myself a set. Then I learned they were clocking in at $100 a more. So, thanks to the trusty interwebs, I found some free cornhole board plans online and started building. Here I am with about $40 worth of lumber and some plans I am trying to make heads or tails of.

Mesure twice, cut once. You can buy the main board pre-cut at a store., and the rest is basically 2x4s. I thought I would need to buy a big piece of plywood and cut it to shape but then the kid was like, "Are you making a cornhole game?" and he gave me the secret handshake and took me right to the pre-cut "gaming boards." Even if you aren't a dude that likes tools much, you will never go wrong in life with your own mitre box saw (pictured here).

Here I am putting the frame together. The American Cornhole Association has very specific parameters for how these are supposed to be built, and I am totally serious.

Here I am trying to figure out, with a 99-cent compass from Wal-Mart, how to make the hole exactly to ACA regs. This was a colossal pain in the butt.

So I said to hell with that and bought this bad mamma jamma off of ebay. With paint, a few extra nuts and bolts, and paint I had a shade under $50 in this project. I decided not to include the cost of this six-inch hole saw (I paid about $35 on ebay, they are about $45 in stores) because I rationalized that I would be using this for other projects. During the course of building this initial set my kids both asked for a set and two more relatives have expressed interest as well. Santa's cornhole shop is going to be busy.

These legs should actually be inside. I misread the directions and cut the legs to 12" before realizing I needed to cut an angle to snug them up inside the box. So to follow ACA regs I just wing-bolted these to the outside. They do fold up flat for easier carrying. These are heavy mothers, though.

Boring picture of finished boards, painted with a quart of white glossy house paint. I also sanded all the raggedy-ass edges. I used wood screws that I alread had to put together the frames and nail the tops to the frames, but had to go to the hardware store for the wingnuts and bolts to make the legs close up. Again, about $50 all together.

I bought an industrial-strength marker and drew my own pictures on the boards. I know my drawing is a little shaky, but I wanted people to know I had made these myself and didn't settle for some crappy decals or something.

I doodled around for a long time and finally settled on kind of a generic monster theme, partially based on what kind of paint I had in the garage to finish these out with. Yes, I actually practiced these on scrap paper beforehand.

My son got conscripted into using his artistic talent to help me finish the painting on these. That was a bacon double cheeseburger I grilled for bribing purposes. Also I think he realized if I finally get these done I will start on his Colts cornhole game for fall tailgating.

You can see the colors of my kids' rooms, my bathroom, and my garage door on display.

We finished these in the backyard in the shade.

Field-testing. I fear my son has done more tailgating than I thought.

You can make the bags, too, but we were eager to play and bought these at a sporting goods store; $20 for 8 in two different colors. In this case, I'm not sure you can make them for less.

Happy Fourth of July Weekend, everybody! We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.