# There are some EXCELLENT woodworkers on this forum. So...



## Nobodo (Nov 5, 2014)

I see a ton of talent on display in the forums here.

There are a number of folks here that are really passionate about woodworking, so maybe somebody is interested in a hobby they could easily grow to love...

A really addictive game called crokinole is played on a wooden game board with wooden pieces, and there are only a handful of people who make quality crokinole boards.

A lot of people display their collector quality boards as wall-hanging art, and pull them down for game time.

It's most popular in Canada, but is becoming more popular in the U.S.

There are currently tournaments in Canada, northeastern USA, Europe, and an annual world's championship in Canada.

It is also a popular family game, and can be play by 2 or 4 players (and a variation for 3 players).

Kids can play with parents, and some of the world's best players are teens and some are in their 70s.

People with mobility issues (or just personal preference) can play with a cue that is similar to a pool cue; there are even tournament rankings for these players.

The website BoardGameGeek (http://www.boardgamegeek.com) ranks crokinole as #39 out of over 7,000 listed games for the 'board games' category, and #2 out of 140 in the category 'family games'.

By comparison, other than crokinole the highest ranked board game that actually has talented people making collector quality sets is 'chess' which ranks #304.

Anyway the reason I bring it up in this forum is I have no doubt some of the members of this forum are quite capable of creating 'collector quality' boards, so this might be something they would really enjoy doing.

The 'collector quality' boards are really prized possessions for dedicated players, and often passed along from one generation to another.

There is a lot of room for artistic license; there are official tournament requirements for dimensions of the playing surface itself but other than that creativity is sought by many.

There are some companies that mass produce crokinole boards, but they are all of poor quality and the only way a serious player would buy one is to give the children something to play on to learn the game.

Also none of the mass produced boards are used in tournaments, so again only the handmade boards are taken seriously.

*The quality boards are hand made, and all the respected makers are small one or two person shops*.

This video is a great example of that:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEnJAFe90yQ​
Note: I am not in any way affiliated with any of the companies listed below, and am including the links not in advertisement but instead as research material for anybody that might want to use their existing skills and equipment in a new area.

There are a couple of brothers named Carl and Stan Hilinski who live on the east coast (USA), and basically all the boards they sell are considered collector's quality.

They have a website at:

http://www.hilinski.net/woodgames/

You can view a gallery of some of the boards they have made at the 'crokinole-gallery' link on the menu at the top of their website; each board is custom made for the buyer and each is individually named.

They also provide a 'how-we-build' link where they walk you step by step through how they build crokinole boards.

The Hilinski's make each of their boards different, but the below makers offer a few different boards for the most part. A couple of them will make boards per request, but they usually charge significantly more for those, depending on what your request is.

There are a handful of other highly respected makers; serious players have at least one board from the Hilinskis or one of the makers below:


Wayne Kelly (Canada) - http://www.crokinole.com/
The "Eagle" is Wayne's most popular board among serious players.

Sue and Murray Skaling (Canada) - http://www.muzzies.ca/
Their 'Tournament' boards are the serious ones.

The Willard family (Canada) - http://www.crokinolegame.ca/willard_story.htm
The 'Pro' is the serious one, and is the most-used board in crokinole tournaments.
Their shop is in the video above in this post.

Crokinole Depot (Canada) - http://www.crokinoledepot.com/
Not really as highly respected as the others, but still quite popular

crokinole.de (Germany) - http://www.crokinole.de/produkte-preise.html
Sorry, I don't know much about them except that they are the most respected in Europe.

Gordon's crokinole (Australia) - http://gordonscrokinole.com/
Sorry, I don't know much about them either.


Something to note: There is a high degree of precision required in making the round game pieces. The folks above make boards and in some cases other parts, but not the game pieces. They do provide them with the boards, but have the manufacture of the game pieces outsourced. In some cases that is discussed on their websites. If you have the equipment and expertise to make the game pieces, so much the better.

There is a really nice guy named Joel Harper that makes crokinole boards and accessories (including a specialized crokinole table).

I said "makes" but really should have said "made". He had to close his shop 2 months ago due to family issues.

He made boards that had a playing surface made from this product: http://diamondsurfaces.com/gallery.html

I was actually in an active email thread with him about board options at the time he closed shop; I should have ordered earlier.

Anyway he shut down his website, but here is a review of a few of his products showing what they looked like:

http://rpggeek.com/thread/935975/puzzler-solid-surface-crokinole-board-review

Some of the people on this forum are obviously very creative, and there is a lot of room for creativity in making crokinole boards and supplies.

Some have slide-out drawers in the bottoms that playing pieces are kept in.

Some have lazy susans built into the base; players that use cues really love having a lazy susan built into the board.

8-sided boards are very popular as collector pieces, but the round ones are preferred for high-level play.

Here are some images of various boards and other woodworking pieces used in crokinole that people have come up with:

http://boardgamegeek.com/images/boardgame/521/crokinole


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## BROOKS (May 22, 2014)

Wow. How have I never heard of this. I don't think I'm in the fine woodworker category. But I think I'd like to try the game. It looks fun!


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## Nobodo (Nov 5, 2014)

it's one of those games you can put on the table when friends or family come over, they can learn the rules in a couple of minutes, and within a game or two people want to play that and not other games, and are asking for it the next time they are over. The games go quickly too.

Here's a family oriented crokinole group that gets together (probably weekly?) at a public location. The featured board is a Willard Tournament Pro from the links above. Notice the nametag stuck on the side of the board so he is sure at the end of the night he goes home with his own board. Note also the granular stuff in the gutter (round, lower outer part) and on the playing surface. Some people call it 'crokinole wax' ( http://www.crokinole.com/preview4.asp?ID=56
) but it can actually be any of several substances like granular shuffleboard wax, boric acid powder, chalk, talcum. For some unknown reason the use of these substances really latched on in Carrom (a game similar to Crokinole but much older, and EXTREMELY popular in India and surrounding countries). The use carried over to crokinole at some point. Today most crokinole players in the U.S. and Europe would never let any of those products even close to their boards, but there are still a lot of hangers-on in Canada mostly that believe you can't play crokinole without those substances. Most of the rest of the crokinole players never, ever use anything on their boards except pure carnauba wax. I'm in the carnauba wax boat too. You use the carnauba on the playing surface, ditch, and on all the discs; frequency varies per owner 'feel', for example once every 100 games or so. Some people use products like Pledge or Liquid Gold between waxings but some stick only with the carnauba.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzxQsiXx_j4[/media]​
Here are some serious players in a tournament. This is a pairs competition. The board appears to be an Eagle Tournament from Wayne Kelly (link above) but I'm not 100% sure of that. This tournament is the Prince Edward Island Championship, and again you see the custom of using granular products in the gutter and on the board that thankfully is dying off. Notice how the players practically can't take a shot at all without rubbing the disc in the granular product first, and sometimes you'll see them wipe it off the playing surface. Miss a shot, they are apt to feel it's because they didn't wax right before the shot or had too many granules on the playing surface. C'mon, ditch the wax and the stress.

[media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPvL6aZBE1k​
As for trying the game, there is a world of difference between playing on a quality board and a mass-manufactured one. The boards aren't cheap, so I'd definitely recommend playing for a while before buying, but also it is not hard at all to sell a board for what you bought it for so it isn't that great a risk. To get a feel for it and see if it's something you'd have an interest in I'd recommend finding a local group that gets together; they always welcome new people. You live in Maryland? What part of Maryland? I might be able to find local groups for you or at least point you toward people who would know. Typically you can be a guest of the group for a while, but you join if you want to go to the more private meetings. Usually once or twice a month there is a meeting in a public place, and sometimes as often as once a week at a member's house.


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## Jolly Roger (Aug 14, 2017)

Can someone come up with a slingshot version of this game?


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