How to Make a Kubb Set

One of the best things about summer is playing a casual game on a field or the beach. In our office, one of our favorite games is called Kubb (rhymes with "tube") that is originally from Sweden. If you have access to some woodworking tools it's pretty easy to make and a lot of fun to play.

What's so fun about the game may not be obvious at first, but after a single game many people get hooked. Trust me, it's worth the bit of effort it takes to make a set.

Kubb wiki page
Rules of play

Get Some Wood!

To make one set you'll need:

- 6' of 4x4
- 6' of 1.5"-2" dowel
- 4' of .75" dowel
- 30' of string

If this is your first set you might want to pick up an 8' piece of 4x4 to try making a couple different kings.

Make Your King

Chop off 12" of the 4x4. This is the wood for the king which acts like the eight ball in the game of Kubb. Knock it over at the end to win, but if you knock it over early you lose. Either way it only gets hit once per game and it often gets decorated to show off how important it is.

The amount of decoration is up to you. All I used for these two kings was a table saw. Two 45-degree cuts were used to notch the sides and a series of cuts decorated the top. A router would work brilliantly here as well.

Or don't cut it at all and draw a smiley face on it. It's up to you.

Trim the Rest of the Wood

The rest of the pieces, the kubbs, are narrower than the king so you'll need a table saw to cut them down.

The size of the kubb is 7cm x 7cm x 15cm or 2.75" x 2.75" x 5.9" so trim off .75" off of two sides of the 4x4.

Chop Off the Kubbs

Now that you have the right size wood, just chop off 10 5.9" lengths of it and you have your 10 kubbs.

Chop Up the Dowels

You want 6 batons to throw at the kubbs and the king and these should be about 12" long. You also want 4 stakes to mark off the playing field and these should be about 12" long as well.

So chop off 12" lengths of both size dowel.

Knot Up String and Wrap Around a Stake

The playing field for kubb is 5m by 8m or roughly 16.5' by 26'. You can mark this off with strides or you can get a length of string or rope and tie a few knots in it so you can quickly mark off your playing field accurately.

Below you can see one of the stakes wrapped with a knotted piece of nylon rope.

Get Out and Play!

Now that you have a set, you should go out and play with it! It's awesome and you can work on your throwing skills.

Below, Bilal throws for guts and glory.

Again, for the rules, check out this link.