Making vs Buying a Hoop

So, you’ve had a look online and think that at 10 times the price of a kid’s hoop, $30 for an adult hoop is a bit expensive. Perhaps it would be cheaper to make your own?

Here’s a bit of a run down of the costs involved in making a medium weight adult hoop using materials from your local ‘big box’ hardware store:

• 3m precut length of 20mm HDPE blue line pipe – $7
• 3m precut length of 16mm HDPE pipe – $7 (cut a 15cm piece to use as a joiner)
• Selley’s Plastics Glue* – $7 (the only glue on the market that works on PE type plastics)
• Two rolls of electrical tape – $5

TOTAL = $26

So, $26 is probably the cheapest you can make your hoop for, and that is just a basic two colour hoop decorated with electrical tape. No glitter, no sparkles, no pretty colours. When you factor in the time to buy the materials and make the hoop (45 minutes), $30 seems quite reasonable.

Of course, if you are making hoops in bulk, the cost per hoop comes down quite a bit. For example, you can get 20mm blue line pipe for about $1/m if you buy a 50m roll, and the glue will do at least five hoops, but  generally my advice to newbie hoopers is this: if you just want one hoop buy it it from a specialty hoop maker. For not much more than the cost of making a hoop yourself you will end up with a way prettier hoop, support a small business and save yourself a couple of hours :)

* whilst the glue works quite well, it is fallible, so a better option is to rivet the joiner in place, for which you need a rivet gun, rivets and a drill.