Please refer to Penny Black Equipment for the following as these also apply to Penny Red.

The Principles
The Ping Factor (Coefficient Of Restitution)
Hints On Making The Board

A Standard Penny Red board, for use with UK 1p pieces, or 5c euro, has a width of nine inches (imperial), two hundred and twenty nine millimetres (metric).

A Tupenny Red board, for those players who, like me, prefer to use UK 2p pieces, has a board width of one foot (imperial), three hundred and five millimetres.

Multiplication factors are given for anyone who wishes to experiment with a non standard sized board.

The spots should have a diameter of not more than one centimetre. The centre of a corner spot should be about one and a half centimetres from the back and side of the board.

The line should be about two millimetres thick.

Multiplication factors are shown above
For a Penny Red board L=9 ins
For a Tupenny Red board L=1 ft

"I like the fact that the board is small so you can take it with you practically anywhere. I take mine on holiday with me. Is that sad? I've also took in down the pub and thrashed the pants off me mate."

The ping factor is not so important for Penny Red as for Penny Black. If the coins obey the second principle they'll do.

For this reason, beginners often use UK 10p pieces on a standard Penny Red board. That allows them to make a few a few starshots. With starshots games don't take as long but are more exciting.

You can decorate the coins with adhesive stickers if you wish but there is no need. Take the coins from your pocket and use heads for shooters and a tail for the red.

For doubles, each player on a team should have a different year of issue on his coin. No cheating!

"We like to use UK 10p coins on a Tupenny Red board. They are quite heavy, slide consistently well, and look good. The collisions have a low ping factor but I think that that fits in well with Penny Red.

"The down side is that we make fewer starshots per game. And sometimes, for a laugh, we use UK 5p pieces on a Tupenny Red board. No starshots at all there, mind. Well, there's no law against, it is there, man?"