Giant Jenga

How to make Giant Jenga! A table top version of a childhood favorite. This is a super simple beginner project and really just requires a few cuts + sanding.

Giant Jenga! The bar game of champions.

To make Giant Jenga you’re going to need 6 8-foot 2 X 4 boards (or 5 10-foot boards).

Measure and cut.

This is the basics of this whole entire project. Some measuring, some cutting, and later on, some sanding. So let’s break it down and get it right.

How to Measure

The first way to measure for this project is exactly what you see here. Grab your tape measure and mark off 10 1/2″ cuts down the length of each piece. Why 10 1/2? Because the boards are 3 1/2″ wide and each row is 3 across. We are making a square tower.

 3 X 3 1/2 = 10 1/2

Now you know each row will be a perfect 10 1/2″ X 10 1/2″ square.

The other way to measure is to set up a stop. We’ll call this Level 2 measuring (the term I will use to refer to anything DIY-related that I have to explain to Heather 45 times). If you can make a stop though, your work will go much faster. To set up a stop you mark one 10 1/2″ mark on your first board. Set that board up like you are going to make your cut, so that you know how far 10 1/2″ is off the base of the saw.

——->>> Interjection: We used a 10″ Miter Saw for this project

Grab a scrap piece of wood (this is assuming you have scrap wood laying around) with a square edge. If you are using a scrap 2 X 4, turn it up so that the pieces you are cutting have something to butt up against. Push the extension arm in until the piece you are cutting to 10 1/2″ touches the stop you just created. Clamp the stop in place.

Now you don’t need to mark every piece. You can just push your 2 X 4 to the place where it hits the stop (which should be at the 10 1/2″ mark) and cut without tape measuring and pencil marking 54 times.

Make your cuts.

You are cutting 54 10 1/2″ pieces for your Giant Jenga set. We only have 45 pictured here because the wife put this finished set into a duffel bag and lugged it through an airport. Twice.

But 54 pieces is the norm.

Sanding is crucial.

If you’ve ever played substandard Giant Jenga in a bar somewhere you know that giant splinters are real.

And ruin all the fun.

So you are going to sand all sides of every piece until they are smoooooooooth.

There will be imperfections. Which gives your game character.

We went to work with 2 orbital sanders and 2 people going full speed ahead and it still took us forever. Just so you are fully prepared.

And there you have it. GIANT JENGA.

Grab a beer and go to town.