DIY WOB standards

[Alan H]

Semi-permanent installation...

1.) four pieces of 3 inch (big stuff) ABS pipe. Might as well get the whole 10 foot length

2.) two ABS connectors for the 3-inch pipe....get a can of ABS cement, too.

3.) 75 feet of cheap rope

4.) a 5-6-7-8 foot length of 2-inch ABS for the crossbar.

5.) roll of duct tape

6.) two little pulleys

7.) 30 gallon emergency water barrel like this:


My local surplus store carries them, but you can buy 'em online for about $40

HOW TO

This is stupid-easy. Drill a little hole in the top of two of the ABS tubes. Attach the pulleys with string into those holes. Thread the rope through one pulley, through the crossbar, and through the other pulley.

Now use the connectors to assemble the ABS pipe pieces into two, 20-foot lengths. You are going to be able to adjust these things up to practically world-record height.

Put the drums on the ground where you'll be throwing, a few inches further apart from one another, than the length of your crossbar.

Fill the drums with water. It helps if there's a hose handy, but if you need exercise, well, here you go.

Now, you and a couple of buddies hoist the ABS uprights straight up in the air and duct tape them to the water drums. Use a lot of duct tape. Go round and round and round the drum. Duct tape is cheap, so use it.

Hoist the crossbar up. Throw until dizziness or euphoria occurs.

To disassemble, siphon the water out, lay both assemblies on their sides, cut the duct tape and haul it away. This setup ought to last a full season, easy and if you store the barrels and ABS out of the sun, you can use it again, next year. Try not to drop 56 pound weights on the barrels, tho.

Obviously you can substitute a 16 foot 4 x 4 for the ten foot lengths of ABS pipe. Also if you drill the ABS pipe and connectors and use some long 1/4 inch bolts as pins to hold them together, you can disassemble the whole thing and it breaks down into ten foot lengths, which is a lot easier to deal with than 20 foot lengths.

You can use the threaded glavanized, or black iron pipe instead of ABS pipe, it just costs more. Note that 2 inch ABS is not rigid enough to support itself over a 20 foot length, you'll have to go to the bigger size.

I've made example #1 in this series of explanations, and use it regularly. I've seen pictures of example #2, and I've seen example #3, the 30 gallon drum idea.... actually used in competition, with galvanized pipe instead of ABS.