Weekend Project - Mini Cornhole

Somehow I completely escaped cornhole while in college. I must have seen people playing it, but probably thought it looked a bit too silly to play myself. One of my friends in grad-school had a set, however, and I gave it a try.

Turns out I'm really good at throwing a beanbag into a hole - and had a good deal of fun doing it.

So this weekend I set out to make a set of my own! I had some plywood lying about, so that set the dimensions of the boards to 20"x13" (which is pretty close to the golden ratio). I used two 7" sections of my favorite 2"x2" furring strip for the legs.

The recipe is simple enough: Slice off the sections with the jigsaw, then drill a hole big enough to get the jigsaw blade into and spiral out until you can cut out the center hole.

I measured out the center of the hole, and then used an old lid (a paint can could work as well) to mark a circle. You can center the circle by making tic marks the radius away in the horizontal and vertical directions. Line up the edges of the circle with those marks, and it should be centered.

I drilled a hole large enough for the jigsaw blade and then spiraled out to cut the hole out. Be careful and take your time during this part, since it's largely freehand, it's also VERY dangerous!

Sand everything down so there are no edges to get splinters from. That would put a damper on your fun!

Onto painting! The photos are a bit out of order - I hadn't charged my drill - and I got a head start on painting before finish the cuts. There are some tricks that can make the painting go easier. I was going for a three-tone design, with two lines leading up to the hole. First I laid down a strip of painters tape for where I wanted the line to go, and painted around it.

Running a razor blade (or x-acto knife) along the edge of the tape helps it peel up without dragging the paint up with it.

I also used the x-acto knife and the lid I drew the circle with to cut a nice circle out of the ring of tape around the edge. This left a nice circle when I painted the highlight strips.

Finally, attach the legs with a couple of screws (this prevents them from rotating). Don't forget to counter-sink the screws, so you don't have the heads sticking up waiting to catch someone's finger.

You may have to do some touch-up work, but we're done with the boards. Now onto the bags.

I used some split-peas for filler, as they have a nice smooth feel to them (it must have looked pretty strange to see me feeling up all the beans in the store). I measured out ~5.3 oz as a good weight, which used 2 16oz bags of beans for the 6 bags. As you can see, I was very careful about measuring out the beans :p.

Finally, we used some old cloth we had lying around for the bags, which are sewn just like a pillow - inside out and the flipped, filled, and sealed.

All done! Grab a cold soda and enjoy your handi-work.

Tools:

• Jigsaw
• Hand drill
• Sandpaper
• Painter's tape (optional)
• Paintbrush
• Coutersink / drill bits / screwdriver bit

Supplies:

• Plywood (spare, probably ~$10)
• 2"x2" furring strip ($2)
• Screws (8x ~$5 for a large pack)
• Paint (I used some old latex paint we had lying about ~$5)
• Cloth (spare, ~$2)
• Beans ($4)

Total: ~$28

Weekend Project - Wine Bottle Torches

We had seen these blue wine bottles turned tiki-torches in various corners of the internet, and decided that they would look great on our back porch (and might even keep the bugs away too). So a quick trip to the hardware store netted the required components for a hair under $25 (nearly half was in the $10 torch fuel). The hardest part of the construction was in removing the wine bottle labels - but repeated soaking in warm, soapy water and scrubbing with rubbing alcohol removed them to our satisfaction. Here are the photos of them in use (we have one hanging up and one on the table);

Tools:

• Screwdriver
• Teflon tape
• Lighter

Cost:

•  $25 (fuel, hardware, teflon tape - no wine bottles)

Backyard Table

    We've been on a scrap-wood kick - trying to get rid of the extra plywood we have with some useful projects. One of these is a table for the backyard patio. The fountain turned our backyard into a nice oasis to chill out in, but it was still lacking something. Primarily a table, so that our back-porch picnics would have somewhere to put the food instead of just on our laps.
    In our characteristic fashions, the Mr. wanted to just screw some plywood together, stain and seal it, and then call it a day. But the Mrs. had some more vibrant ideas, and after a quick trip to the local hardware store, we came back with some tile and mastic. Here's the story of the backyard table.

    We cut out an (almost) equilateral triangle from one of the plywood scraps, rounded the corners, and sanded it to a nice finish. After this came two coats of stain and sealer.
     Next we laid the tile out on the wood, marked the edges, and cut the tile with a Dremel equipped with a diamond cutting wheel (sorry no picture). This process took awhile, and should also be completed with proper safety precautions (safety goggles, dust-mask, and gloves).


    Next up was the mastic and grout - a thin layer of mastic was applied on the surface of the wood, and we pressed the tiles into that. Once it had dried (24 hrs) we applied the grout to the tiles. We needed to start at the center tiles and work our way to the edges to allow the edge tiles some time to set. This way we didn't knock all the grout off when cleaning the tile surfaces. Moistening the cloth helped remove the drier grout from the top of the edge tiles.

    After that the legs were attached with some hardware that we had laying around from when we built the bench. The screws going into the table-top are 1/4 inch plywood screws. With the metal bracket, they barely avoid going through the plywood.

    With a couple of coats of grout sealer, we had a final product! The table nestles nicely between the two chairs when we have them angled towards the fountain, and is matched in height to the arms, so it's easy to use.

Tools:

• Mitre saw
• Jig saw
• Power screwdriver ./ drill
• Dremel
• Protective devices (goggles, dust mask, gloves)

Cost:

• $10 Tile
• $5 Mastic
• $0 Existing wood, screws.

Weekend Project - The Fountain of Youth

No, I haven't actually found The Fountain of Youth, sorry to disappoint. However we are youthful and we did make a fountain this weekend. Here's the recap of this rather easy weekend project:

Here's step 1: spray any of the pots that aren't waterproof with the waterproofing spray.
While that's drying (it took our brand 24 hours to dry), build a mesh fence to keep the rocks away from the pump - proper flow around the pump is ideal, most pumps have some built in spacing element, but we figured the more the better.
The bricks and mesh also help support the smaller pot, which will sit right on the spout.

We then placed the smaller pot on the spout and filled in the area with the stone pebbles. One of the asthetic things I really wanted was for water to fill the small pot and bubble out of it. When we first turned it on this didn't happen, the water came out of the fountain and then leaked through the hole in the bottom of the pot! We could have caulked up or cemented the hole, but being inclined to not make another trip to the hardware store, I just took a ziploc bag, cut a hole slightly smaller than the spout in it and forced it over the spout. After holding it down with a few rocks, it isn't 100% waterproof, but it slows down the leaking enough that the pot fills up and bubbles over.
 Of course, it would be nice if it were just this easy. However, after installing the first pump we turned the gadget on, and it whined like a banshee without pushing much water. So we drive back to the hardware store, return that pump and buy another one. Immerse this one in water, plug in and... enjoy the mechanical screeching sound. Now we've had enough of this hardware store, after returning the new banshee, we head to the other hardware store across town, find yet another pump, drive back, put this one in the water, and engage it at full speed to hear... gentle bubbling! Finally, the relaxing fountain we were looking forward to. Let this also be a lesson to try out the pump before fully building the fountain and rock around it.
 Here are another couple of pictures of the finished product. We can take off the fountain's bell attachment for even more soft bubbling sounds:

 Tools:

• Wire cutters

Purchase breakdown:

• Large tub
• Small pot
• Rocks
• Pump
• Wire mesh
• Bricks
• Can of sealant

Price:

• Tools: $0 (Pliers and clippers help for the mesh)
• Supplies: $127
• Total: $127