How to Build a Cornhole Set
Last year my Grandparents had the entire family (around 50 people) out to their farm for a get together. I brought my bean bag/cornhole set with and it was a big hit, so I decided to make a couple sets for them to keep out there for the yearly reunion. I decided to go with a barn door set and a camouflage set to fit the theme of the farm.
I had Home Depot rip a sheet of plywood into quarters to make it easier to haul but the pieces weren't all square. I stacked them and used a circular saw jig to rip them all to equal sizes. The movable workbenches are great to keep the dust off the cars in the garage.
2x4's have rounded edges from the mill so I took them all to the jointer and squared one side up. This way there is a clean edge where the board meets the plywood. The jointer was my father in laws when he first started woodworking. While I was restoring it, the best information I could find was that it was made by Montgomery Ward (yes, the retail store), and was made in or around 1947! After a little elbow grease and some new blades it runs like it was made yesterday.
I found the center of the plywood and measured down 9" from the top for the 6" holes. Then, used a large drill bit to make some relief holes around the inside of the circle.
Clamps removed and everything is still holding! I left a 1/16" overhang when attaching the 2x4's and came back with a flush trim bit in the router to make a nice seamless edge where the components meet.
Looks a lot cleaner now.
The plywood wasn't the greatest quality so there was plenty of sanding to be done.
I used the band saw to cut all 8 round legs out, then sanded to the line on the disc sander. This is another one of those tools that I don't use all that often but am always glad to have it when I need it.
I then drilled a small pilot hole in the center of the legs on the drill press and used that hole as a pilot for a long bit which reaches through the frame. I used a scrap of 2x4 to space the leg out from the frame. This allows room for the leg to fold back and rest against the frame while standing.
I was originally going to go for more of a realistic camouflage paint job but I thought a cartoonish paint scheme would be more fun for this cornhole set. I took a large sheet of cardboard and free handed a pattern.
I used a utility knife to cut out all of the shapes and got ready to spray. Kept the garage door open to minimize my paint high.
I tried to mix up the colors and alternate them in a somewhat random pattern. I used smaller pieces of cardboard to cover the cutouts around the area I was currently spraying.
The camo paint job came out fantastic on the first cornhole set, I was really surprised how well they looked after I pulled the cardboard off!
The barn door set came out equally as well. I really like the way the white looks against the red.