Hi, I’m Sam Wiltshire and I’m a furniture maker based in Bristol in the South West of England
In the autumn of 2016, and with the need for Christmas presents for family members looming, I began wracking my brains and searching the internet for something that I could make. I had become a bit fed up with the vast amount of shopping that I normally undertook at that time of year, and I started wondering if there was something I could make a number of, that would appeal to family members with an age range from 5 to 70.
A game seemed to be the best way of appealing to all, and when I first saw a Crokinole board whilst Googling, I immediately fell in love with the look of the curved circular board. After a bit more investigating, I was convinced it would be great fun to play too.
With that original batch of 6 boards, I devised some of the techniques that I still use now, including the 8 spokes that form the structure and the single piece of plywood forming the playing surface and the gutter.
The game proved very popular and I quite quickly had a couple of enquiries from people who had played it, asking if I was planning to make any more.
Over the course of 2017 I refined the design and introduced the triangle box, containing the playing disks, that fits into the back of the board (now called the Crok Box).
I developed the name, branding and instruction booklet with the help of a graphic designer friend at Frisbee Creative, and began having elements of the process improved by laser cutting and laser etching.