Playing the Game of Washers
The following article will go over all the basic you will need to play a game of washers from building your own set of boxes, scoring, length of the court, washer size to optional ideas. We will first cover the building of the boxes.
First of all you will need to make 2 boxes in order to form a set. Boxes should be made out of 2 x 4’s, plywood and 3″ inch PVC pipe. You will want to cut two 2 x 4’s at 18″ inches long and two 2x 4’s at 15″ inches long. Next you will need to cut two bottoms one for each box, these will be cut out plywood and should be cut at 18″ x 18″ inches. The next step in the process is to assemble the boxes so the measure 18″ x 18″ screwing the 2 x 4’s and the plywood together. You will know need your 3″ diameter PVC pipe, you should cut this so that it is 3 Ã?½ inches tall and attach it in the center of the box. There are a few ways to attach the PVC pipe to the box, first you can cut a wood circle so that it fits tight inside of the pipe and then screw it on the sides of the pipe and then attach it to the bottom of the box. When you screw it to the bottom of the box, you may need to cut the screw off if it is sticking out. I will attach some pictures to show you an example. The second way to secure the pipe would be to use liquid nail or caulk around the perimeter and stick it to the bottom, this however will take a few hours to set up and you will not be able to play immediately.
You may also place sand in the boxes, this will prevent the washers from bouncing out and make the game play a little faster. This totally optional, but if you do it for one box, you need to do it for all the boxes. Do not use to much sand, about a �½ inch inside the box and cup should be just fine.
Now that you have your boxes complete, you will need to go to your local hardware store and buy some washers. The washers you will need to get measure 2 Ã?¼” inches this is the outside diameter. Each team will throw 3 washers per round, so you will need at least 6 washers for the set. I suggest you get around 10 because you may loose a couple and may need a few spares. Next thing to do is paint the washers, you will need to paint them two different colors, one color for each team. If you buy 10 washers paint 5 red and the other 5 yellow, the colors you want to use is entirely up to you this is just meant to be an example.
Now we will cover the layout and rules of the game. First when setting up the court space your boxes so that they are 22 �½ feet apart, this is from front to front.
The game is played to 21 points, you get one point for each of your washers that land inside of the box and 3 points for any washer that goes in the cup. You will also be playing cancellation scoring, here is an example of how this works. Team A throws 2 in the box and Team B throws 1 in the box. Team A gets 1 point. Also in cancellation scoring a cup can only cancel a cup, this means that if Team A throws 2 in the box and Team B throws 1 in the cup, Team B gets 3 points and Team A get NO POINTS.
This covers all the basics of the game. Give it a try, I’m sure that you will find that it is a great game to play.
