Travelling Mexican Wrestling Ring

For Halloween 2006 I and some friends all dressed up as Mexican Wrestlers. Now, this is all well and good, but really if you're a wrestler, you need to wrestle. And if you need to wrestle, you need a ring to wrestle in. And if you have a lot of parties to go to, you need to bring the ring with you. Thus arrived the idea of the portable, or travelling, wrestling ring!

Materials:

• four 4 foot lengths of PVC pipe, 1" diameter (don't go smaller or they are too bendy, but bigger is probably OK)
• black spray paint
• 16 yards of 2" wide black elastic
• 4 leather strips (optional)

Tools:

• something to cut slots in the PVC with (more on that in a bit)
• sewing machine, or needle & thread

Step 1 Cut slots in the PVC pipe

Each length of PVC needs a pair of long holes in it, one about 4 or 5 inches from the end, the other about a foot and a half further down. The slots need to be about a quarter inch wide, and 2-1/2 inches long, so the elastic will fit through. Optionally you may also put in a shorter, wider set of holes at the opposite end, through which you will thread the leather straps.

Mark the location of these slots on all the lengths before you start cutting them. The placement doesn't need to be in any kind of precise relationship on a given pipe, but you do want all 4 to be pretty close to the same.

I started to cut these by first drilling a 1/4" hole at each end, and then using my Dremel with a cutting wheel attachment to cut out the PVC between the holes. While this did work, it took a long time and blew dust up my nose. I don't know if PVC dust is poisonous or anything but it does make me sneeze a LOT, so this wasn't a very good solution. Luckily we have a milling machine here at Instructables, and this works much better. If you don't have access to a milling machine (not all of us do) you could do this with a regular electric drill using a routing bit.

Comments

[ilpug]

Pretty awesome! You could also use old bike tire inner tubes for the straps.

[mikeasaurus]

How has this missed my attention all this time?!
I'm bringing my luchadores mask when our paths next cross.

[darkmuskrat]

DUDE! WICKED! lolz, the lady in the background has got a doll head bra :P

[royalestel]

Hahah! You're awesoem! I mean, Awesome!

[FrenchCrawler]

Nice Job... Suggestion though: Maybe next time have two retractable and lockable dog leashes attached to one pole and just have the leashes loop through the others. Then all you need to do to travel is retract the leashes to have all the poles bundle together and hit the lock button on the handles. Unlock them and pull the poles apart to your desired ring size and lock them up again.

[rachel]

That sounds easier to construct, but would a leash stretch? One nice thing we got from the elastic is that people were able to bounce off the ropes at their opponent, Just LIke On TV. Although one time the pole-holders weren't prepared for the extra strain and everyone went over in a pile.

[FrenchCrawler]

Good point. I don't think they would have stretch in them, but maybe if you were to pull them all the way out, cut them, and replace them with the elastic, then you would be able to "wind" them up making travel easier :)

[rachel]

Right, transport. I left it off of the instructable because it wasn't very well done, but i also made a bag with a carry strap to lug it around in. I'll post a pic of that onto the instructable now.