Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment

[Tim]

Michael Janich's book "Homemade Martial Arts Training Equipment":

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158...Fencoding=UTF8

Claims to tell you how to make a homemade speedbag.

Has anyone read this? Is it truly a homemade speed bag, or speed bag platform?

How good could a homemade speed bag be ? Especially considering you can get one for $20 at ringside?

[Fuzzy_donkey]

I've made my own platform. It's made of 1 1/2" fur. (Has a very pretty grain pattern to it, and weighs a ton.)
The reason I made it up like that is for the weight, and so there is no vibration to it at all. To buy one that heavy duty costs a fortune.
The wood I got was for free so the price was right too.

Works good....

I'll add a picture soon too.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy_donkey

I'll add a picture soon too.

I would like to see that. I've toyed with the idea of making my own as well

[Fuzzy_donkey]

Originally Posted by Tim

I would like to see that. I've toyed with the idea of making my own as well

Here are some pics...
Excuse the clutter; it's my garage/shop/gym....


Click on the picture to enlarge

[Speedbag]

Fuzzy_donkey's board is beautiful. Very nice looking setup. I also notice the old style two piece Everlast ballhook, #4440. This is the older style, for the "S" hook was changed in it's last version to make the bottom of the S much flatter. Your's looks to be from before that. I don't like the flat S-Hook and much prefer the swivel like YOU have.

Of course, the two piece S-Hook is long gone now, replaced by the single piece plastic version.

Nice speed bag setup, FD.

[Fuzzy_donkey]

Thanks for the compliment on my board.
As for my s-hook.... You're good; you hit the nail right on the head. I actually got it on e-bay a while back, band new in the packaging for just over $2.00 or $3.00. It was my one great find on e-bay.

[Tim]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy_donkey

Here are some pics...

Looks good. Very nicely done.

Where did you get the wood from the rebound board ? I looked for something like that at Home Depot once but they didn't seem to have any. I'm all thumbs when it comes to woodworking. Did you have to shape it and round off the edges yourself?

[Fuzzy_donkey]

Originally Posted by Tim

Looks good. Very nicely done.

Where did you get the wood from the rebound board ? I looked for something like that at Home Depot once but they didn't seem to have any. I'm all thumbs when it comes to woodworking. Did you have to shape it and round off the edges yourself?

The wood I used for the board, and the braces are all same wood. (I just didn’t do any finishing to the top part of the board.)
As for were I got it; you see I am a linesman by profession for the electric company here where I live, and the wood I used was a x-arm. (The cross braces that you see up on hydro poles.)
All I did was rip one down the middle, and then cut them in smaller peaces. After that I just glued the pieces together.

Making the circle was probably the easiest part of the whole thing. What I did for that was, I got a piece of plywood roughly 6”x24” long and attached my router to it at one end. Measured from the bit back to the desired size I wanted. So if I wanted say a 24” board, I would measure back 12” and attach it at that point in the middle of the board with a screw. Then just go around and around taking small cuts (depth wise) at a time.

After the circle was cut out, I just rounded the edges with a round over bit in my router, sanded and added a coat or two of varnish, and that was it. It was relatively an easy build, and took me about a day to do.

The thing I like the best about it is the fact that it’s so thick and solid wood. Makes it very heavy and REALLY helps to cut down on vibration.

[Speedbag]

Fuzzy's board is beautiful. A real work of art.

But for the less Carpentarily or Router challenged crowd, the rebound board does not have to be round in shape. The speed bag "rebound area" is "circular" around the center point (swivel attachment). the bag will create it's own circle, but the board, larger than the bag can be of any shape.

So, if you have a thick, square piece of wood, and no saws or routers to cut with, your board could still work. Just align it with the hanging bracket system and put a swivel in the middle. The bag will define it's circle.

I once saw a picture of a gym with a long overhang on one wall, much like a 16 foot long sheet of plywood, with swivels and speed bags attached every few feet away from each other. 6 or 7 people could stand and hit speed bags at the same time. (unfortunately, each bag could not be individually adjust for height.)

Here is a similiar "long row of speed bags" set up. Row of speed bags1 and Row of 7 speed bag stations
(* bags seem way too high for most of these guys....)

and notice in this picture, the swivel are attached to the low ceiling. ( not bag bag behing this boxer, and look at the "rebound" pattern of the bag, which has worn off the ceiling stain) pugilistica historical picture

[Chris M]

Here's my home made board for my basic Everlast speed bag setup. After watching Alan's speed bag video and reading the Speed Bag Bible, I was all ready to get some 3/4" plywood and put on top of my board like he did. I got to thinking that I had a bunch of cherry out in the garage, so what I did was plane 3 or 4 six foot pieces down to about 7/8" or so and then ripped them so they were 1 1/2" wide. Then, I cut them all to somewhere around 30" in length and glued up the wide sides together in three sets each about 10" with pipe clamps. After they dried, I ran each of them through the planer to make them evenly smooth and clean up the glue. Then, I glued the three 10" pieces togther and let them dry. I then sanded the board down nice and smooth on both sides and using a big compass, I made the circle as large as I could, which I think was about 29". Then I took my router and used a 1/8" roundover on the top and bottom. After that was done, I sanded it all down again with 150 and 220 grit sandpaper and put a couple of coats of Linseed oil on it. It really made a difference, however, my problem is now the frame flexes a little with my big 11x8 bag, hence the reason I decided to get the adjustable Ringside setup. I'm in the process of redoing the drum and mounting boards since I'm going to put it outside, I want the wood to be well protected. I'm using marine grade polyurethane, and am probably going to put about 5 coats on it, which should be more than enough. I may put more on the top of the drum though since it's going to take the worse of it. Here are the pictures, hopefully I'm doing this right: