An outdoor game that you can make yourself for under $10? That’s Mölkky! From the moment I learned about this game I’ve been excited to check it out. Even a sloppy, semi-capable carpenter like myself can chop up pieces of wood and number them. This is a game that almost anybody can make, and for a really great price.
First off… what is Mölkky?? I like to refer to Mölkky as “Yard Bowling.” Basically, Mölkky consists of tossing a short piece of wood ( the Mölkky ) toward 12 numbered pins ( the Skittles ). If you knock down one Skittle, you get as many points as the number on the pin. If you knock down several of the Skittles, you get 1 point per fallen Skittle. Games are played to exactly 50 points. Check here for more Rules and Building Info.
How to Make a Mölkky Game
First off, you’ll need to find wood. Mölkky is most commonly played with round, 2.5″ dimeter wood pieces. Good luck finding anything that size. After searching far and wide, I ended up finding 3″ beams intended as fence posts. For $5.90, the price was right.- The fence post I purchased was pretty raw and rough. I went over it with some really high grit sand paper to knock down the bigger sliver pieces. This took a little time, but made the finished pieces much higher quality. I used a palm sander, but a belt sander would have sped up the process.
- Once you’re sanded, it’s time to chop your pieces. The common size for a Skittle is 6″ tall ( to the high point ). Since I used a wider piece of wood to begin with, I ended up making my Skittles taller. I cut a 12″ piece from my fence post, then cut that in half at a 45 degree angle. That gave me pieces that are roughly 7.25″ tall ( 4.5″ short side ). Pick a size and go with it! You could even mix it up and have the pieces be all sorts of sizes. The tossing stick ( Mölkky ) I cut to 9″. This left me with about a foot of leftover fence post. You could make an extra tossing stick with it – which would be kind of nice to have, really. ( maybe even have 2 sizes )
- Next I took my cut pieces and prettied them up a bit. This wasn’t the best wood in the world, and most pieces have a split on them someplace, including the throwing stick. Since you handle the Mölkky a lot, I puttied the cracked spot with some water based wood putty. No promises that will stay in there forever, but the big crack would have bothered me.
- For the Skittles, I wanted to soften the edges a little. I quickly hit all cut edges and the number face with 120 grit sandpaper. This dulls the edges, and makes the number face a little smoother for the numbers you’ll be adding.
- Time to add the numbers. I gave everything a quick wipe down to remove the dust from sanding. Next, I drew numbers on the Skittles with a pencil. You could skip that part, but it cuts down any marker mistakes… I used a Sharpee for drawing the numbers. I wider marker would have worked better, but I went with what was handy.
- We’re sanded, cut, sanded, and numbered. Next up is finishing the pieces. I used some old polyurethane floor finish I had around. Use whatever you want. Paint, stain, poly, or even leave them raw. I ended up putting on about 3 coats before I was happy with the finish. This rough wood took a few coats to get as smooth as I wanted. I hit it with 220 sandpaper between the 2nd and 3rd coat to knock down any raised edges.
That’s it! This game is REALLY easy to make. All it took was a $6 piece of fencing, sandpaper, a marker, and some finish. If you’ve got a saw around the house, you can make this game!
I mentioned earlier that I used 3″ wood instead of the standard 2.5″. Now that I’ve played the game, I think that’s the only way to go. The 3″ pieces can be hard to stand on grass – so 2.5″ would have been even harder. Also, the added size makes for bigger targets. To me that’s more fun!
If you can’t find any 3″ fence beam like I did, you can still use several things to make a Mölkky game. There are several types of landscaping timber that would be okay, you could rip down 4×4′s to work, or you could even use pieces of PVC pipe. I read about one guy who loves to play that way. Be creative. Mölkky is cheap to make and fun to play. Well worth checking out.
Mölkky Game Links:
Game Rules
Molkky Forum
Molkky Photo Gallery
Making Molkky Gallery
Game Building
Mölkky Information
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