Build a Kicking-Tee From a Cola Plastic Bottle(1,5 L)

I was quite surprised that there were no instructables about building a rugby kicking tee(I suppose this site is frequented mainly by Americans, where Rugby is not so diffused nowadays but exists another "oval-ball sport", and being in english I suppose also by British, Australians, New Zealanders, so potentially quite a massive rugby-passionate audience).
So I decided to fill this gap with my instructable from Italy.

In the pictures:
1) Rugby Player(Gerard Fraser) kicking a penalty.
2-5) Some examples of different brands commercial kicking-tees

Step 1: Needed Material and Tools

The Needed Material:
- 1,5 litre Cola Plastic Bottle
- Pattern( in the pictures)
- A little of isulating tape is needed (more is optional and useful)

Tools:
- Scissors
- Permanent marker pen(fine-small tip is better)
- Shim (1 inch or better 3 cm)

Step 2: First Step

Wash the bottle inside and remove the label.

Trace a vertical line(representing the forward of the tee) with the marker availing the chamfer.
This line is useful as reference.

Step 3: Second Step - Lower Part

Trace with the marker a circonference at the right height using the shim.
the tip-point of the marker should be about 3,5cm high from the desk surface, but choosing the shim remember that you must consider the radius of the marker too.

Remove the bottom of the bottle cutting not too close to the traced circle.

Cut following the circle with precision.

Step 4: Third Step - the Pattern

Draw the patter (in the picture there are enough informations to draw it)
or print it, but pay attenction that it's in the right scale!!)
on a sheet of paper or something flexible.
DIMENSIONS IN CENTIMETRES!!

OPTION: If you want a taller/smaller version of the kicking tee you can:

A) add/subtract a constant C to the vertical dimensions and draw the pattern with those dimensions
for example add C=2,5cm,
dimensions become: 11,3 - 11,3 - 11,5 - 11,3 - 10,8 - 10,3 - 9,2 - 8,4 - 8,2

B) draw the pattern with the original dimensions and then draw a rectangular shape of the desired height just under the pattern

the result is the same
In both cases I would not exceed 5 cm or 2 inches):

Then cut out following the edges.

Step 5: Fourth Step - Upper Part 1

Attach the pattern to the bottle using tape
The longer vertical edge of the pattern should be on the vertical reference line.

Convolve the pattern around the bottle, the pattern is half of the bottle circumference

With the marker trace the upper edge shape on the bottle surface.

Step 6: Fifth Step - Upper Part 2

Remove the upper part of the bottle keeping distance from the traced shape.

The upper part removed

Cut following the line traced

Step 7: Finish and Optional "final Touch"

The kicking tee is finished, but I advice you to add some rounds of coloured insulating taper or paint it in some way to avoid lose it because it's quite "invisible".
(I lost the first i made, completely transparent , during a windy and quite dark evening, the wind moved it and I wasn't able to view it on the field)

The tee can hold the ball at different angles; axis from about 85 degrees to about 30 degrees from horizontal.

MODIFICATION: For Other kinds of balls for example American Football the patter would probably need to be modified.

Comments

[henkdepotvus]

is he pattern in inches or in centimeters?? It is a great idea!

[landimatteo]

Thank you. Anyway the pattern is expressed in centimeters. It was specified in a note inside the image but maybe on mobile devices you can't see the note.

[landimatteo]

Thank you. Anyway the pattern is expressed in centimeters. It was specified in a note inside the image but maybe on mobile devices you can't see the note.

[fraser02]

cool! gd idea...

whoops sorry im about 5 years late;)

[landimatteo]

Thank you, your comment is still welcome.

by the way I noticed your nickname, you are not the one in the picture, right?

[fraser02]

uh... no, the picture is part of a poster of the All Blacks,the New Zealand rugby team. Where i come from. They won the last rugby world cup in england:)

Thanks though:)

[landimatteo]

No, I mean the picture of the player kicking in my ible. He was our fly-half many seasons ago, and being his name Gerard Fraser.... I asked

[fraser02]

oh, sorry i misunderstood!

no, i am not Gerard Fraser sorry... he is currently a rugby union fly-half for the Bordeaux Bègles... and no sorry i know nothing about them, have never heard of them:)

[Podgoric]

Tell me please, is the length of this bottle's circle 29.4 cm ((7*2+0.7)*2)?
In my country we have only 1 and 2 l Coca-Cola bottles, so I must find some another bottle with equal circle.

[landimatteo]

I didn't considered this problem, but anyway you can scale up/down this pattern or you can also draw your own(even better since the ball is always the same size and shape, so the intersection of the ideal shapes would be slightly different).
Anyway this pattern is not so analitically perfect that needs to be changed, this was just a result of a couple "experiments".

[hijklm]

this tee works great but what tee would this be if it was sold in stores? As in would the centuron tee be comparable to this one?

[landimatteo]

Of course my tee is not intended to compete with "premium" tees, this is not telescopic and not as firm as them on rough terrains, but it's probably better than some cheap tees you can buy, and don't forget that this is totally free.
The centurion in the image can be considered only a similar solution (because the ball is held by a "properly cut" pipe and not by 4 tips or a flat ring) but not even an inspiration since I designed mine on my own starting from the bottle(to take part to "Keep the Bottle" contest) and I had never seen that kind of tee before.

[Pangjk]

This Helped Me great Thanks Man...i decorated it with black and white tape...

[firemanfu]

I'm American but rugby is the only sport i play, and it's my favorite by far.

[landimatteo]

Of course firemanfu, I did not meant that there are no americans playing rugby, especially in the past it was more popular, you also got really good results in the early '900...I only meant that it's not a numerically leading movement, and I thin you can agree with me that about rugby the countries you think first are NewZeland, SouthAfrica,Australia, UK, Ireland, France. And being Italian I can really understand you because all think that we play only soccer but it's not true...as you can argue rugby is the favourite sport for me too. I hope you found my instructable interesting, bye.

[bennyboy09]

dude you spelt new zealand wrong

[bennyboy09]

dude that is a good tee