Punch Board

A year or so ago, I made a punch board from a foam core board for my son's Digimon party. That game was the favorite of the whole party. This year I decided to do it again for my younger son's Yo-Kai Watch party. I remember the last board had issues: It was flimsy and bent when kids punched and it was good only once because of that. So this time I decided to make one from sturdier materials so that it stands up to the punching and can be reused in the future.

You need:

Wood. We used 2 pieces of half inch pressed plywood I believe. But any sturdy wood would work fine.

Blue Insulation Foam board. I had some left from the Monado project from Halloween

2 large Hinges.

Tissue paper. Got mine from dollar tree

Aero Tac 2 adhesive spray

A 5in hole saw and drill

glue stick

scissors

pen

sharpie

Since the insulation foam was left over from a previous project I already had it cut down into panels. The panels were pretty much perfect size for my boards. The less fortunate starting with new stuff will have to cut the foam down to fit.

Align the wood with the foam and clamp together to hold.

Use the hole saw to drill out the holes. It will cut through both the wood and the foam. On the first board we just went for it and eyeballed the spacing and placement of the holes. For the second one, we penciled in some guiding lines to help keep the holes straight. We ended up with 3 columns and 7 rows of holes on each board.

*It is a very very good idea to label the wood and foam now. Mark it so you know which foam piece goes to which wood and which sides touch. Believe me there are SEVERAL combinations and it sucks to try to find the right one later.

Cut off any excess foam

Sand down the boards. Sand both sides and around the holes.

Sorry I didn't get good pictures of this but its pretty self explanatory. Just arrange the two boards and install the hinges. Make sure you do this so that the board closes with the wood sides facing. The sides that will have the foam need to face out because the board will not fold up with the thickness of the foam if the foam sides face in.

Don't worry if the screws protrude out the front, the foam will cover them.

Now it's time to attach the foam to the boards.

Start with one side. Spray the wood with the aero tac and the back of the corresponding foam piece. Flip over the foam and align it with the wood. Press firmly. The foam will also press into the screws from the hinges. This will fully cover the hinges and help secure the foam.

Repeat with the other side.

Keep pressure on the punch board for a while.

We turned ours foam side down and put cinder blocks on it. We left it over night simply because it was late so I'm not sure how long it takes to get a solid hold.

The first time you do something it's filled with trial and error. I took a sheet of tissue paper and cut it into 4ths. Then I laid out that square over a hole and folded 2 sides so that it didn't extend over another hole.Then I trimmed the square down to that size. I did this with all the squares I needed for the design of a car. I didn't know if I covered multiple holes with one sheet, if when punched at one hole, it would not disturb the others so I made one sheet for each hole. Now that I have done this, I know that covering multiple holes with one sheet works fine so you don;t have to spend all the time cutting the tissue paper down.

You need tissue paper and a glue stick.

Our punch board was designed to look like a car because the character Jibanyan in Yo-Kai Watch beats up cars, or tries to, and that is the game I had planned.

Again with trial and error. I started out making the car in a pixelated way. I used 4 blues for the 2 tires, 18 red for the car, and 6 white for the windows. But this didn't really look much like a car and I didn't like it, but to apply the tissue paper, just put glue all around a hole and press the tissue paper down. Make sure to stretch it tight across the hole so its easier to break.

So after I had the horrible square car, I tried to cut off pieces of the tissue paper to shape it more. This did not work well. That glue has a pretty good hold! I could not get the pieces off easily.

Instead, I added a background color to cover up the parts I wanted gone. Lay out the background color over an area, use a pen to mark the shape you want, then cut it out and glue it on. I did this to shape the car better.

Then I added details in the same way. Just draw, cut and glue.

*You have to be very careful, it is really easy to accidentally break a hole covering if you press on it.

Once you are happy with your design, it's done. You can fold it up to store when you are not using it. Just add more tissue paper to reuse in the future.