Make Your Own Juggling Clubs the DIY Way

Once upon a time (in 1978) my boyfriend and I were starving college students and jugglers. We wanted some juggling clubs but didn't have the money. But we did have a book by Carlo called The Juggling Book. It was a zen of juggling type of book and he told how to make clubs (pins) for juggling out of broomsticks and empty plastic rubbing alcohol bottles.

We didn't know how to balance them well. They had short little handles and were handle heavy so they flew wrong. But we still learned with them. Of course as soon as we had the money we upgraded to professional juggling clubs. After I got my new ones, a year or two later most jugglers switched from short handled to long handled clubs so we had to upgrade again.

For years I would run into jugglers that could only do 3 balls, and I would encourage them to learn clubs, and they would say they cost too much. It didn't occur to me to tell them to go make their own. So imagine my surprise when in 2011, I am walking down the streets at night in San Luis Obispo, CA after their Christmas parade, and I see this guy juggling 3 homemade clubs that reminded me of those bygone days. It was a bottle on a stick all over again, but his had a tennis ball contraption on the end. I thought that was genius! The extra weight of the ball should fix the balance issues. I was intrigued all over again.

I ran into the guy two days later. He was sitting on a bench on Higuera St. So I had to ask him about his clubs. He said he got the idea from an Ebay tutorial. I am kicking myself for not taking his photo, but at the time I didn't think I'd be writing about it.

When I got back to Anaheim I looked up the directions. I don't know who to credit for the tennis ball innovation, but I'm crediting Carlo with the first idea of DIY juggling clubs.

I bought the parts yesterday and I'll keep you posted on how mine come out.

My goal is to make 6 juggling clubs (pins) that match so I can pass with other jugglers. And I like the idea that they are made from re-purposed soda bottles. I did have to buy some parts. I only had one dowel on hand, so I just bought more of those. And I bought screws, because I want to do my best to make all the clubs the same weight. I could have pilfered screws (and if you do a lot of woodworking you probably have screws on hand).

I already have the tape. I bought a bunch when I was making hula hoops. I bought the furniture tips for about $4.00 for 8 at a hardware store. I only need 6 of them. I'd say my cost to make 6 of these is about $20. in new stuff because I already owned the other parts.

On a youtube tutorial one viewer complained that for that price you could buy a set of clubs. I gather he hasn't priced them. The cheapest I've seen a set of three clubs in molded one piece plastic was about $30 at a Black Friday event. For clubs with a wooden handle and plastic body and decorations, you are looking at about $25-$45 per club or $150 and up for six.

If you are juggling for a living, definitely go for the professional version. If this is a hobby and you love DIY stuff, make your own.

After procrastinating because I'm not that great at using saws, I got my dowels cut today. I was just going to cut them in half like the tutorial suggested but I measured my other juggling clubs and they were only 21" long, and cutting the dowels in half would have added 3 extra inches to each club. I want to be able to pass the new ones in the same juggling patterns with the old ones so I needed them the same size. So I had to make 6 cuts instead of 3. Once I clamped the dowels to the table I was done with the sawing in 10 minutes. I'm happy to be making some forward progress.

Right after I wrote the paragraph above my boyfriend asked me if I could paint him a banner on canvas for an archery event on Sat. The look on my face must have been 'you've got to be kidding, right?' After some negotiations, he agreed to keep working on the clubs if I'd start working on the banner. At first we worked side by side with me putting the washers and screws on the tennis balls and him drilling holes into the ends of the dowels. Then when the big moment came to put the dowels inside the bottles we had an 'uh-oh' moment. The dowels were too big to fit into the bottles. So I'm ready to run out for bottles with bigger mouths or dowels a bit smaller. He decides we can just sand the dowels we have down. I asked if he was volunteering because that seemed like a whole lot more work. He said he'd do it so I left him to it and went to paint. And it did take him a long time to shave down those dowels with his woodworking tools. So if you are doing this project, take your bottle with you when you shop for your dowels of vice versa. Make sure they fit before you buy 6 bottles.

The screws I had looked a little too big too. So I found some others in my tool box. So right now we have 4 clubs with the bottles and balls attached, and 2 that need to dry before assembling. Wash your bottles the day before so they can dry out. He tried on 2 of the slightly wet bottles and they got stuck on the dowels and he couldn't get them off easily. Why am I telling you all this? So you have an easier time than I did.

For cutting the tennis balls in half, I was able to see the seam if I looked closely and drew dots around it with a permanent marker to use as my guideline. That was much easier than the directions in the Youtube tutorial. If you are a child or teen reading this, ask an adult to cut the tennis balls. It would be easy to slip up and cut yourself. Make sure you are in a secure position where you can't slip and cut your hand or anything else.

Now I've run out of day so I'll have to finish another time.