Jumping is an impressive thing to be able to do on your skates but it takes practice and confidence to make it look good. I'm by no means an expert (if you're in London then Ray is the person to speak to about doing this: he really is one of the best!), and so I decided to build a high jump bar to practice with.
Apparently you can buy them, abroad, particularly in France, but you're probably going to pay around £70. The cheapest home made one I'd heard of is about £30. So here's a list of what I wanted from my high jump bar:
- It should fit into my bag.
- It can't weigh much, because my bag weighs enough as it is!
- It has to be at least 1m tall, enough to grow with my ability.
- The supports have to be rigid and not flex the higher they get.
- If it costs more than, say, £30 I'd be upset!
Intended design of the high jump bar.
The design of the high jump bar is pretty straight forward: you need two support bars and a crossbar. The two support bars need to be free standing and the crossbar should not be clipped into place so that, if you hit it, it'll fall off safely.
I'm sure there are plenty of ways to build this but this is what I used:
- 4 carbon fibre poles: 1 x 4mm diameter, 1 x 6mm, 2 x 8mm.
- 2 small bulldog clips.
- 2 slalom cones.
- Filler, like polyfiller.
- Coloured sticky tape.
I bought the carbon fibre poles from Decathlon: they're in the kite section and they cost about £3 each. The total cost of this came to a little over £15 as I happen to have some spare cones to waste. You could replace these cones with plastic cups, like the ones sold at Ikea (that so many people have used for slalom cones!) but don't use the cheap disposable cups: they're going to act as weight later.
These bits will go together to make the high jump bar, but you'll also need the following things to actually build it:
- A stanley knife.
- A hacksaw.
- A light sandpaper.
- Superglue.
- Clingfilm.
- Sellotape.
- An A4 sheet of paper.
Some of these might sound particularly stupid (clingfilm?) but you'll understand why as you read these instructions.
Building the support bars
Support pole design and final version.
The 8mm diameter fiber glass poles are going to form the support bars, and the ones I bought from Decathlon are 160cm long, giving me plenty of height (I think the highest jump on skates I've heard of is around 120cm!). Using the hacksaw we'll need to cut these into short lengths, enough to fit into a bag or make it easier to carry this stuff around. I cut mine into 40cm sections and I suggest you make sure the length is a multiple of 10cm (40, 50, 80, etc but not 42 or 58), so that it is easier to mark the heights.
Handily the 6mm fiber glass pole from Decathlon fits inside the 8mm poles, and over the 4mm pole. This means we'll use that 6mm fiber glass pole to make joiners. So, with the hacksaw, cut off eight 6cm sections.
We're going to push one of the 6cm joiners so that half of it is inside one end of a 40cm section. But this needs to hold, permanently, so put a little bit of superglue on the end that'll be pushed inside. You may find you need to lightly sandpaper the joiner a bit, just to get it to fit, but be careful not to sand it too much: the fit needs to be tight, at least at the end being glued in place.
Once you've pushed the joiner in make sure to wipe away any excess glue with a damp cloth.
Repeat this for each of the 40cm segments so that you end up with 8 pieces that look like the design. You should be able to see that, once the glue has set, what you'll be able to do is join two 40cm sections together by pushing the unglued end of the joiner into the open end of the section. That's how you'll put the support bars together when you're outside.
The support pole base design and in reality
Now we need to put together the bases that'll give the support bars the ability to be free standing, and this is where that clingfilm comes into play! Those slalom cones are going to become the bases but we need to do a bit of work to give them weight and to help them hold the support bars vertically.
First we need to cut a small hole, no larger than the 8mm diameter of the fiber glass pole, in the top of each cone. You can use a drill if you want but I found the stanley knife to be just as easy.
We're going to fill these with the filler but we need the pole to pass through that filler and, more importantly, to remain vertical. Here's how I did it:
Get the piece of paper and trace round the bottom of a cone. Cut out the circle you've just traced and cut a hole in the center (tip: fold it in half, in half again, and once more, then cut off the point you've just made).
Get one of the 40cm sections and wrap the clingfilm around it, so it covers enough to pass through the cone and then some. Push that covered part through the hole in the top of the cone and out until it is passed the base by a few centimetres.
Push the pole through the hole in the paper circle and move the circle down until it's at the base of the cone. Sellotape half of the paper circle to the bottom of the cone: this holds the pole as vertical as possible.
Mix up the filler into a stiff mixture and pour it into the cone through the unfastened side of the circle. Do this in small pours so that you can make sure the mixture spreads evenly around the pole; don't worry if you can't fill the cone completely, it's more about making sure that you have enough to keep the pole vertical in a moment. You do need to make sure to minimise the air pockets, so make sure you push the mixture around a bit, using something like a pencil.
Sellotape the rest of the circle down and leave the pole to stand, with the cone upside down. It's going to take a couple of hours, at least, for the filler to set.
I was lucky in that I had a couple of large jam jars that I could use to stand the cone in, upside down. This meant that I didn't have to sellotape the paper circle in place until I'd filled the cone. And that only needed me to make sure that the pole remained vertical during the filling.
I left my filler to set overnight before I continued as I was being careful. My advice is actually to fill the cone in stages, about a third at a time: it means the filler will set pretty evenly.
Once the mixture has set you can untape the paper circle. If the filler hasn't filled the entire cone make some more and get it to the base of the cone. Once that's set you can pull the pole out of the cone (now do you understand why the clingfilm was on the list!) and what you should be left with is an effective stand.
If you find that the filler doesn't remain inside the cone then you can use the superglue to fix it in place. Sure, you could use the cones as molds but I prefer to use them as a cover and protect against damage of the filler.
Repeat these steps with the other cone so that the pieces you end up with (the two cones and 8 40cm sections) form the support poles.
Making the crossbar and supports
Crossbar and support.
Making the supports for the crossbar is simple: clip the small bulldog clips to the support bars! The handles of the bulldog clip can be used to support the cross bar, once you've made it.
Get the 4mm diameter carbon fiber pole and cut that into sections. I actually cut mine into 3 sections of 50cms: yes, this is going to mean they stick out of my bag, but I didn't want to have too many joins.
Next cut two 6cm sections off the 6mm carbon fibre pole. These are going to be joiners, like before, except that the 4mm pieces are going to fit inside them.
Get one 50cm section and put superglue on both ends, just 3cms of it, then push a 6cm joiner on each end. Wipe off any excess glue with a damp cloth and leave the glue to set.
And that's the crossbar made!
Whilst small bulldog clips work well they are fragile: I've broken two already! This is probably because they are at their limit when attached to the support poles, so I'm trying out a few different variations. If anyone has any suggestions for what else might work please do contact me. Remember that the crossbar should not be held in place, so that if (or when, in my case) you hit it, it falls to the ground without pulling over the support bars.
Final touches
A photo of the final high jump bar is coming, I'm just waiting for the wind to die down in Brighton!
First we need to mark off the height on each of the support bars, using the coloured tape. I marked every 10cm, with the top of the tape marking each 10cm point; that way when I clip the bulldog clips on I can be quite confident that they are at a particular height. Ok, it's not perfect, but I'm not doing competition jumping, just practicing.
Each of my 40cm support pole sections has 4 marks on it: 10, 20, 30, and 40cm. The good thing here is that it doesn't matter which way I piece together these to make the support bars, the heights are always going to be right. That's why I said the keep the lengths a multiple of 10cm.
You may choose to mark two 40cm support sections in 5cm steps. That way, as you get to the limit of your jumping, you can move in smaller increments. I've done this but only after I had thought about it for a while!
You could make the decision to superglue each of the cones in place on two support pole sections. I haven't, purely because I can pack all of the sections of poles together and tie them with elastic bands, then just drop the bits into a bag. It's up to you.
I hope you've enjoyed this How To as much as I have making, and using, this high jump bar! If you've got any questions or improvements I'd like to hear about them.
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