A couple years ago we got into a yard game called Kubb (rhymes with tube). Since then it’s grown quite a bit in popularity, at least around here. If you haven’t heard of it, the basic idea is for each team to take turns trying to knock down the short wooden blocks (called Kubbs) by throwing the long skinny wooden blocks (batons) at them from the other side of the yard (called a pitch) without hitting the extra large wooden block (the King) in the middle (until the end of the game). Sounds thrilling, I know! The full rules are a lot to digest at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually pretty fun.
Rookie mistake
Being a total noob at woodworking, the result wasn’t half bad for a first attempt, but I made a critical mistake that would make any woodworker worth his salt cringe.
Instead of ripping the pieces for the batons lengthwise, I figured I could avoid making narrow cuts on the table saw (and keep all 10 fingers) by ripping a board first to 12″ wide (length of the baton) and then crosscut it into a bunch of 2″ pieces (width of the baton) with the miter saw. After I glued everything up, I should’ve known something wasn’t right when sanding them smooth was virtually impossible. After only a couple of uses, I was shocked when, even with all that hardwood and all that glue, one of them literally snapped in half. Turns out that aligning the grain is important for more than just looks and I had severely compromised the strength of the baton by aligning the grain with the width instead of the length.
Second time’s the charm
The next set I made (photo at top of page) was a wedding gift, so in addition to fixing the previous issues, I went all out and made some stakes for marking the pitch, a mallet for pounding in said stakes, a laminated instruction sheet, and with the help of a friend, a carrying box. As an added bonus, he was also able to hook me up with that custom laser-cut and laser-etched medallion you see on the front, which turned out pretty neat considering I have about as much artistic ability as I do athletic ability; which is to say, none. When it’s fully-loaded, all that oak guarantees that you’ll wear your arm out hauling the thing long before you even get to playing the game.
