Home Made Balance Board: a Better Roller

There are plenty of instructions for making balance boards. A couple of the roller choices
include using soda pop bottles covered with duct tape, or pvc covered with a non slip
adhesive.

This simple instructable describes a different roller for the balance board.

Materials:
Go to the plumbing section at a home supply:
Get PVC the size of the roller you want. 4 inches in diameter is usually recommended.
Buy the length of PVC to fit the width or diameter of the balance board.
You may have to cut it.
Buy rubber PVC couplings (about 4 inches long and 4 inches in diameter) to match
the length of your balance roller. Your roller is somewhat quantized to multiples
of the rubber pipe couplings.
You will need a hacksaw to cut the PVC.

Description of the pipe coupling:
This RUBBER coupling will NOT have any internal ridges... it will be smooth inside.
It will have a band clamp on each end

Construction:
I should almost leave this blank.
Cut the PVC to the desired length (also matching the length of couplings that will be used)
Remove the band clamps from the couplings
Slide the couplings over the 4 inch PVC.

Comment:
If you get any slippage you can use a slow drying tacky glue, I would use it carefully and
as minimally as possible.

I am in process of finishing the balance board, but have tried the roller under a
a skateboard.
The rubber has both a nice gripping capability and a mild shock absorbing effect.

While this is not likely to be a 50,000 mile solution, the couplings are 5 dollars a
piece so a retread will cost 10 to 15 dollars.


Final thoughts:
The roller works quite well with the exception that the rubber can "walk off" the PVC.
It is not especially a big problem, but gluing the pieces on will solve it.
After building the 4 inch I decided to build a 3 inch roller which turns out to be easier
to use. You could probably build a 2 inch to start on and then increase the size to a
3. 2 inches might be the ideal "beginner's wave".