# T ball stand



## moonie (Jun 18, 2010)

I now this sounds like a DIY question but has any one buildt a T ball stand.Me and the wife got ower grand child a glove and her shoe's but I never seen a T ball stand how tall is it and can I build it out of wood and remember I have 10 more grand childen to fow her any help would be nice again I apologies


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## HanselCJ (Feb 11, 2010)

my dad built me one when i was a kid. It was a plywood base, a flange and metal pipe came up, and there was some kind of thick rubber hose that you would put the ball on. It might have been insulation, but it was thick and heavy duty. If you use hose clamps you can adjust the height if need be.


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## wapakfred (Jul 29, 2011)

That was more or less the way I did it (30 years ago) for my kids. I used a galvanized pipe flange, and short pipe of 2" pipe (I think) and a straight radiator hose that fit over the pipe. With a hose clamp I could adjust it to the correct height.


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## JoeinGa (Nov 26, 2012)

Fred's got it. A short, straight radiator hose from the auto parts place.


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## cmaxnavy (Dec 23, 2007)

Precious!


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## mojapitt (Dec 31, 2011)

Height wise, you want the ball about elbow high for the granddaughter. Maybe make it somewhat adjustable.


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

Id like her take a good swing and gauge the height off of that, let the top of the tee end up in the "sweet spot" of her swing. IMO, at that age, its all about the positive reinforcement. Sounds like a pretty cool little project.


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## Charlie5791 (Feb 21, 2012)

Look at PVC pipe too. I made one about 25 years ago. Also get some Furnco fittings. Those are the rubber "splice" kind of sleeves that you'd use to repair or join a couple pieces of pipe. They have the screw-type band clamps on each end. Flange on a plywood base, with a stub of PVC glued into the flange. Furnco fitting joins the stub to a vertical piece of pipe. (The furnco takes some of the shock of a kid hitting the pipe instead of the ball). Then I had a piece of pipe that fit inside the "main" one. It was a little bit of a sloppy fit but it didn't matter. Cut a bicycle inner tube to make fat rubber bands. Those go around the piece of pipe that slides INTO the "main" pipe. This gives you height adjustment. The smaller diameter pipe only slides into the "main" pipe as far as the rubber bands.

For the "ball holder" you get another Furnco, but this one is normally for changing pipe suzes, like to join 2 inch pipe to inch and a half. You want to get one that fits that smaller diameter pipe as its SMALL end and then has a larger end facing UP to hold the ball.

So.. you have height adjustable, shock absorbant t-ball stand. Easily repairable in the field (don't GLUE anything). Also I learned not to make the base too stable. Obviously you want it stable enough to stand, but in the case where a kid strikes the stand instead of the ball, it's ok if they knock it over and that's preferable to breaking the stand.

The hardest part of the whole thing was finding the 2 pipe sizes that would work together with one sliding into the other. I believe I used a piece of PVC and a piece of ABS electrical conduit, but I could be wrong about that. It was a long time ago. That stand (I made 3 or 4 of them) was still in use at the little league diamonds about 10 years after my boys were no longer playing t-ball.


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## MT_Stringer (Jul 21, 2009)

Here is a pic of my grandaughter taking her first at bat in a t ball game. The Tee needs to have an adjustable height to fit the batter.

Good luck.
Mike


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## moonie (Jun 18, 2010)

Thanks everyone for all the great input and the pic helps alot I got home plate made and I got a 2" peice pvc and 1 1/2" as well so Im going to run down to the parts store and get some hose but I didnt thank Furnco fittings Im going to look in to that too thanks again everyone.


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