How to Make a Kubb Game Set
How to make a Kubb yard game set. Download the free building plan, including How to Play Kubb instructions.
What is the Kubb Game?
Kubb is a popular lawn game. It is sometimes called Viking Chess Game. The name Kubb is pronounced similar to koob. Kubb game is played with wood blocks and wood batons. While Kubb’s origins are obscured by the passing of years — a lot of years— it seems most likely it was invented in Scandinavia more than a thousand years ago. The Kubb game spread throughout much of northern Europe. Originally the playing pieces were likely firewood. As with many such folk traditions, the rules varied with the region and the period of time. It can be played with anywhere from one to six on a team.
Kubb is played by two teams standing on opposite sides of the designated Kubb game area. The players alternate turns throwing wood Casting Pins, called Kubbs, at their opponents wood Kubbs that stand on the ground.
Download the FREE Kubb Game Set Project Plan
A Kubb Game Set includes ten Kubb blocks, one King block, six casting pins, and four boundary stakes. This plan also includes a dimensions for an optional wood mallet for driving the stakes.
Use solid wood or laminate thinner stock to form the playing piece blanks. You can speed the process of laminating blanks for the casting pins and kubbs by gluing and clamping them all at once between several long bar or pipe clamps.
In this case a shop-made bevel-ripping jig and table saw rip fence can form both the kubbs (left) and the casting pins (right). Set up the jig to cut the kubbs first. Four 45° rip cuts will turn them into octagons. Then slip a 11/32"-thick spacer next to the casting pin blanks before ripping them to shape.
You can prevent your game pieces from chipping during play, and make them more hand-friendly, by easing their edges with a chamfering bit on the router table.
How to Play Kubb - Rules of a Kubb Yard Game
1. Define your playing field by placing the corner pins, king and kubbs, as shown in the illustration above. You can have from one to six players on a side. The more players there are on each side, the more time there is to drink beer while playing.
2. Play starts with players standing at their base line and the first team tossing their six casting pins, attempting to topple all five of the other team’s kubbs (underhand tosses only, with vertical, end-over-end rotation). Once that occurs, the king can be attacked and a winner declared.
3. Unless all five kubbs and the king are toppled during the first team’s first turn (an indication that they are not taking the beer drinking aspect of the game seriously enough), the opposing team takes their turn. Play alternates until one team has knocked down all the kubbs and the king. If the king is toppled prematurely, the game is over and the opposing team wins.
4. There are many variations on the game (just Google “Kubb”), featuring increasingly involved and interesting rules. For example, in one variation, when a team has success-fully toppled all of the other team’s kubbs but fails to topple the king, the opposing team can bypass attacking the kubbs and go directly for the king, winning the game if they’re successful. When playing this variation, a team with only one casting pin left can choose to forfeit their toss rather than risk toppling the last kubb, which would leave the king vulnerable to their opponent’s attack.
Keep the inspiration coming!
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