I got tired of constantly climbing off and on my 16.2hh barrel prospect, so I asked my engineer husband (Brad of Brad Builds) to come up with a solution. After a quick detour to the feed store to measure the dimensions of the blue plastic barrels and a fruitless trip to Walmart to try and find some pop-up hampers with dimensions close to a barrel (when did pop up hampers get so small?), we spent the car trip back brainstorming. As a kid, it was popular at some arenas around me to cut metal barrels in half and weld them to giant springs to make them “wobble barrels” incapable of being knocked over. Neither of us felt like buying welding equipment or paying someone to weld a set up (because $$$). We happened to have some random movie playing in the background when we discussed options, and as we watched the main character hit a punching bag we realized it would make the perfect base for our no tip barrels. 3 kids boxing sets ordered off of Amazon and a trip to Home Depot later, our DIY No Tip Wobble Barrels were born. The best part? The set of 3 costs us under $100 and less than an hour to put together.

I decided that covers weren’t necessary for my set. I didn’t want to worry about them blowing away. But if you do want covers and can find a pop up hamper big enough or have a set of pop up barrels, they can be put over the hula hoop to create a complete “barrel”.

How To Make A Set of 3 Wobble Barrels

Materials (aka the shopping list)

• 3 cheap hula hoops with an ~22” diameter from Michaels, Dollar Tree, etc. (we used THESE ONES)
• 1 5.5" x 6’ Cedar Fence Picket from Home Depot (like THIS) OR 6 1” rectangular dowels if you do not have a table saw to rip down the cedar plank (like THIS)
• 12 1/2" Pipe Clips from Home Depot (we used THESE ONES)
• 3 kids boxing kits (we used THIS ONE from Amazon)
• 3 Bolts (carriage or hex head bolts will work)
• Sand/Dirt

Tools

• Hammer
• Table Saw (Ideally)
• Miter Saw (a hand saw will work if you don’t have a miter saw)
• Drill
• Funnel

Steps

1. If you have a table saw, rip the cedar planks down into ~1” strips. It does not need to be perfect. If you do not have a table saw, you will need to purchase rectangular dowels instead and can skip this step.
2. Measure the inner diameter of your hula hoops. Chop your wood to that length using the miter saw. You will need 2 pieces per hula hoop, so for a set of 3 barrels, you want 6 total pieces.
3. Place one wood strip into the middle of the hula hoops. Clip a conduit clip onto either side of the hula hoop and hammer onto the wood.
4. Flip the hula hoop over. Repeat the process with another piece of wood at a perpendicular angle. You have to flip the hula hoop over because the conduit clips are slightly off-center, so this way you can clip them both on even though the wood is stacked
5. Drill a hole through the intersection of the two pieces of wood to fit the bolt. We used bolts that were lying around in our workshop so we don't have a size to tell you. My best recommendation is to take the top rod from the boxing kit with you to the store and test out what size fits best. It needs to screw into the pole with an ~2" gap left to fit the wood
6. Assemble the boxing kit by following the instructions but do not put on the top balloon. Congrats, you get a free pair of kids boxing gloves and boxing balloon as part of this build.
7. Using a funnel, fill the base with sand, dirt, or water.
8. Slide a bolt through the drilled hole in the center of the hula hoop and thread into the stand.
9. Congrats! You now have your own DIY no tip wobble barrel. You should be able to hit it pretty hard and as long as you put enough sand in the base, it will bounce right back.

@theglamorouscowgirl DIY WOBBLE BARRELS! I ride alone 99% of the time and was tired of climbing off my 16.2hh horse to reset barrels. So my husband came up with these for me! Full instructions and a supplies list are up on our blog. Make your own set of 3 for under $100 #barrelracer #barrelracing #diy #cowgirl #rodeo ♬ Original Sound - Unknown