Okeechobee Cornholer

by Jesse Bryant
(Okeechobee, FL)

Boards turned out great! We used hinges to connect the legs to the underside of the boards, so they fold away for easy storage. We also attached a 3/4 inch dowel between the legs near the ends for extra stability. We drilled a 3/4 inch hole on the inside of each leg approximately 1/2 way through the leg, then inserted the dowel and held it in place with a screw through the leg into the end of the dowel. We then installed a clip on the underside of the boards to hold the dowel and legs when the legs are folded up. The clip is one of those spring-loaded clips that are made to hold brooms, mops, or tools, and are screwed or nailed to the wall. To make sure the legs did not collapse during use, we attached a small barrel bolt slide lock on the botton of the board, with a hole in one leg to slide the bolt into. This makes for a solid game board with no movement. I'll have to submit photos later.

We sewed our own Cornhole Bags from duck cloth, which we dyed since they did not have the colors we wanted. We learned a lesson, though. One set of bags was made with a natural color cloth, which we simply cut and sewed. The other sets were made from the same cloth, but we washed it first so that it would take the dye, then dyed it in nearly boiling hot dye bath, washed it, dried it, then cut and sewed the bags. This process shrunk the material somewhat. The unwashed bags have stayed firm, while the dyed bags have stretched during play -almost to the original size - and the corn has become loose, causing the bags to play differently from the other bags. In the future, if we dye bags, we will cut them and sew them before washing, dying, and drying. This will assure that the bags are all uniform size after a couple of rounds of play.

We had two Cornhole Sets going on New Years Eve and New years Day, and several of our family and friends played. My cousin got me started with this game at Thanksgiving. He made his set from different plans and the boards are not nearly as stable as the ones we just completed. We are planning to build another set this weekend as a birthday gift for my uncle, who has become an avid cornholer.

We are having a great time enjoying our cornhole boards. It is fun and competitive.