How to Make a Chinese Checkers Board

Intro: How to Make a Chinese Checkers Board

This instructable will show you how to make a wooden Chinese checkers board that can be used with marbles to play the game.  I have a wooden board and marble set and when my brother-in-law and his wife saw it they wanted one but couldn't find one to buy. So I made it.

STEP 1: Tools and Materials

Tools 
Automatic center punch
Plunge Router
Round nose router bit (I used 12.7mm)
Round over router bit
Pillar Drill

Materials
300x300x18mm piece of wood
60 x 14mm marbles 10 of 6 colours
Board template (attached as pdf)
Varnish, Oil or stain to finish the wood

STEP 2: Marking and Drilling the Board

Place the template over the board and using the center punch mark each center dot. I used and automatic punch as you only have to press on it. If you are using a punch and hammer I would suggest taping the template to the board.

Once you have the board marked it can be drilled. I mounted the round nose router bit in the pillar drill and set the depth stop on the drill. I would suggest practicing on a similar piece of timber to set you drill to the correct speed to achieve a nice finish with the bit.

You may have the same problem I faced and could not position the board on the pillar drill to get a few holes in the centre of the board. To get around this either use the router bit in a hand held drill or use a plunge router.

STEP 3: Finishing the Board

Once all the holes were drilled I then used the router with the rounded edge bit to add some detail to the outside of the board.

Then give the board a good sand down and I chose to finish mine with linseed oil.

Set up the marbles and you are ready to play

STEP 4: How to Play

To play the game each player puts his or her own colored marbles on one of the six points or corners of the star and attempts to relocate them all to the opposite corner. Players take turns moving one marble, either by moving it one single adjacent step or moving a chain of one or any other number of available jumps. A step consists of moving a marble to an adjacent unoccupied space in any of the six available directions.  A jump consists of jumping directly over a single adjacent marble, either one's own or an opponent's into the unoccupied space directly beyond the adjacent marble, this can be repeated to form a chain. It is not mandatory to advance the marble by as many jumps as is possible in the chain. In some instances a player may choose to stop the move part way through the chain to impede the opponent's progress or to align their marbles for planned future moves.

Comments

[Bbirdman]

This all very nice... but how do I download scalable copy of the template??

[con slack]

the board will as big as a standard templet. what 18" or so.

[pudtiny]

this board is 300mm square

[con slack]

how may I buy one templet so I can make a chinese checkers board?

[pudtiny]

hi, the template is free to download load from the instructable

[SherrieA3]

how big is this board?

[pudtiny]

300mm square

[con slack]

I have a question and you need to answer . The question was, I would like to buy a templet for holes in the board for the marbles for a chinese checkers game. email con.mark.slack@ gmail.com thank you Con

[aw035723]

cool game

[aw035723]

cool board game

[KeithO26]

What size should you print this template? A standard piece of paper seems way too small for marbles.

[pudtiny]

I printed on A3 paper. As long as you print it so the template circles are just a little smaller than the diameter of the marbles you want to use.

[desertwalker]

Thanks for the template Pudtiny, appreciate it.

[dkorwood]

why can't I print the templet? I so want to make this.

[pudtiny]

Sorry not sure I just tested it and its working. It does print onto A3 paper could that be a problem for you?

[bgartman]

Hi pudtiny
I just wanted to let you know that I used your Instructable for this Chinese Checkers board tutorial as a reference in my "Edible Chinese Checkers" Instructable. I hope this will bring even more views to your Instructabe, and thanks so much for the inspiration!

[SWV1787]

My fiance's grandfather made some wooden game boards  for a game they called simply "Marbles" because marbles were used as game pieces. It was played kinda like "Trouble" made by Milton Bradley. I like the idea of using the router bit for the indentations a drill bit works but looks nowhere near as nice...

[luvit]

i played this with my great grandparents. they said it was called "aggravation".
the bottom side had chinese checkers

[pudtiny]

I have found plans on the web referring to that board as aggravation  which I believe is alternative name for trouble which later got turned into the plastic version called frustration.

[Learndy]

Just a comment regarding the name of the game. "Chinese checkers"? Here in Germany we call it  "Halma". Oh, this site is so enlightening! :-D