Weekend Project: Cheap & Easy Agility Jumps

A while ago, Emma and I decided to build some practice agility jumps to use for backyard practice.  Since this project was successful we decided to share it with you.  Here's how we made two jumps for about $40.

We went to the home improvement store and bought 3 1" PVC poles, 2 3/4" PVC poles, 12 1" pole caps, and 4 1" tees for about $20 (all our PVC is Schedule 40, if you don't want to have the bar codes and item numbers on the pipe, go for furniture-grade PVC. However, this tends to be a more expensive option).  The other $20 we spent on 4 4-way tees that we had to special order from Clean Run.

Whenever we being a building project, we make a checklist of all the parts needed, and work our way down the list checking off items as we go before assembling the obstacle. Here is what we already had:

• PVC cutters
• hacksaw
• tape measure
• black marker
• clamps
• cutting board (not the kind you use in a kitchen)
• vinyl electrical tape, optional

Here is what we needed:

• 2 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 48 inches
• 4 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 36 inches
• 12 poles of 1-inch PVC measuring 12 inches
• 4 1-inch  PVC 4-way tees (we ordered ours from Clean Run)
• 4 1-inch PVC tees (these are the normal ones from the hardware store)
• 12 1-inch PVC caps, we like the ones with the rounded look, but you can get the flat ones, if you want
• 2 poles of 3/4-inch PVC measuring 48 inches

Note: you can use PVC glue to adhere all the pieces together. We chose not to, because we wanted our jumps to be collapse-able for easy transportation and storage purposes.  If you want water tight jumps use a PVC primer and glue on all the joints.

Now that we had the list, we could buy our products. We found two 10-foot lengths of 1 inch PVC and one 10-foot length of 3/4-inch PVC to be sufficient for this project, along with all of the fittings we needed, of course.  

So, we cut all of the pieces down to size. It is very important to note that you should measure and cut each piece individually as you go, because you can lose a little bit of pipe when you cut. Next, we separated the two jumps into their components and began putting them together. 

Once the jumps were assembled, we set about making jump cups. A simple solution would have been to buy a set of jump cup strips from Clean Run, but a cheaper solution was to make our own! Since all of our dogs jump 16" or less (for now, at least. Tucker will jump 20", but he is still building up muscle), we only made two sets of cups for each of the jumps. To do this, we clamped a regular PVC tee to a 2x4 board that we straddled between some cinder blocks. Then we went to town with the hacksaw to cut the tee in half and provide us with two cups. To make the cups snap on and off the jumps, we also cut just less than half of the back off, creating a clip-like portion on the tee. pic of cups - on right side, make this section wrap We repeated this process three more times, and, voila!, we had jump cups!

The last step was to align the jump cups and set the bars in between them and admire our new practice jumps! We also decided to stripe our jumps with electrical tape so that they matched our weave poles.

To download and print complete, detailed instructions with more pictures, visit: http://howtomake.allearsagility.com/practicejumps.pdf

HAPPY JUMPING!

-- Emma & Olivia