Cribbage is one of those “old people” games that I never gave much thought about playing… That is until I actually played it, and surprise surprise, it’s a very fun game!
I had this gnarly scrap chunk of rough walnut that was the perfect size and destined to become a board.
When it comes to making the board there isn’t really that much to it, it’s obviously a lot of holes in a piece of wood.
I originally bought a $2 paper template from Lee Valley but knew that I would have a hard time keeping everything lined up and spaced evenly so I bought the Small Cribbage Board Template from Rockler and while it did work well for the most part I did have some issues with the drill bit getting jammed. I spent a lot of time picking wood bits out of the bit.
Living in Canada it also ended up costing about 50% more than if I lived in the US.
The piece of wood that I used had a lot of figure so the grain was a bit challenging and may have lead to some of the issues I experienced. I went back over some of the holes and filled them with CA glue and re-drilled them.
This clogged the bit up even more.
I think if the bit was more of a brad point vs a spiral the cutting would be much cleaner.
In the end, the process was nice and simple and the templates were easy to use.
I bought the pins from Lee Valley as well, you might recognize the brass pins from my Original IQ Test.
If you enjoyed the article then why not check out the Custom Cribbage Board build video?
