The kitchen renovation rages on, but between painting and tiling there is time to work on a little side project.  A backyard knife throwing target.  It also works for hatchets!

This project took only 3 2x4s, a bit of glue, and a hand full of screws.  I started by cutting up a pile of 3.5″ long 2×4 segments.  These are going to go together like a end grain cutting board.

At 5 across and 10 tall the target comes out roughly square.  15 x 17.5.  You could add another row to make it very square, but that would have required additional 2x4s and this seemed like a big enough target.  Easy to say now when I hadn’t missed 10 times in a row.

Titebond type 3 is an outdoor compatible glue, even if standard 2x4s aren’t.  Not sure if that matters or not.  It will be a race between the environment rotting and pulling the target apart, and my ability to actually hit something and cause damage.  My monster belt sander came in handy for leveling the edges of the rows after the first glue up.

With everything glued I had a big block target.  This alone would probably last a while, but could somewhat easily cleave in half along the grains.  To help with strength I wrapped the edges with 2x4s screwed into the core.  This will help hold the relatively delicate center together longer.

A bit of throwing shows that I am no good at this.  Maybe the environment will get to it before my accuracy chunks out the center.