Astounding Stilts!

by technick29

8.8K518

Intro: Astounding Stilts!

So, over the weekend I got around to making my own stilts, courtesy of instructions provided by the Dangerously Fun website.

However, after walking around on the stilts for a bit, the bottoms start to splinter. The site recommends using tape, duct or electrical, as a remedy, which I tried. The remedy worked, though it looked a bit odd. But later, when I was in my garage...

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.... I found an old pair of sneakers. Put two and two together, and you get stilts with shoe bottoms! The shoes add both attractiveness, humor, and better traction to the stilts (rubber bottoms!). The funniest part is, I store my stilts underneath a car....

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...which looks like I ran someone over. The shoes stick out from underneath the car giving the illusion. At least I got a chuckle out of it, and I hope you do too!

18 Comments

Obediah 15 years ago

Love it. I am a professional stilt walker and I have baby shoes on my stilts. wish I could say it was my idea but Phil Briggs gave me the idea. baby shoes are way funnier. And anyone telling you all you need is duct tape on the bottom is crazy. Good for you finding the shoes.

Kazeem 15 years ago

Duct Tape wont protect the stilts for two minutes i dunno what kinda crazy website he was on...

I use bike tires at the moment for my jumping stilts, but used to use some (UK) size kids 11 baby converse things, which were only £4, but they wore through eventually... as is to be expected...

Even so, they were fun while they were on there :P

arpruss 12 years ago

Duct tape will work for rather more than two minutes, especially if you use a lot of layers.

Obediah 12 years ago

My goal would be about 100 hours of stilt walking. But for around the block duct tape could work.

Obediah 15 years ago

Here are some baby shoes I use, they are Nike's and have lasted quite a while, probably 50 hours of stilt walking so far. The trick I found is to first cover the bottom of the stilts with a folded bicycle inner tube, attached with a hose clamp, then add the shoes.

Kazeem 15 years ago

Right, i see, hehe... two points why mine didnt last as long... 1. Because you've set them up in a superior fashion - Mine went straight onto the rubber hoof of the stilt, which wore through the insole, while the floor wore through the outer sole... so it was a two pronged attack if you like. 2. My stilts are jumping stilts, meaning they last less than half as long on protection. The shoes i used lasted maybe... 10 hours... at most. The reason for this is that the use of jumping stilts is a lot more aggressive and extreme, wearing the shoes out very quickly, think scuffing your shoes across the ground with EVERY step you take, and then leaping 6 feet in the air repeatedly, doing tricks that scuff the soles down further.... That's what ends up happening to the bottoms of jumping stilts... hehe...

technick29 15 years ago

Wow, I have to see that! Stilt stunts!

Kazeem 15 years ago

search 'powerizers' on youtube, and see if you can find videos of people doing somersaults over cars :P

Obediah 15 years ago

Jumping stilts ...I want some! I pretty much just walk an stand in mine.

Kazeem 15 years ago

They are incredibly fun...

I got mine from http://www.pro-jump.co.uk/ which is the cheapest place to buy any, but they only ship to the UK... Depending on where you live, you'll want to either investigate them under the brand 'Powerizers'(USA) or something else, which i cant remember for Australia.

Also, to keep in mind, ones under the brand '7 league boots' are mid-range, quite expensive, and are good stilts.

'Powerskips' are the best standard stilts on the market, cost £799 or over $1000, and are very good, but hard to get hold of.

One company mods powerskips to be even better, and sells them for more, calling them 'velocity motion stilts'

and 'Sky-runners' (i think, unless that's the australian brand) are illegal, as they arent patent protected, and break easily and are dangerous.

Also, dont buy them off ebay, as they're also more likely to break.

Hope to hear of you getting some soon, and would love to see some videos/pictures of you on them if you get some :P

GorillazMiko 16 years ago

Haha, awesome! I think you should post a picture of you on them, like Weissensteinburg said.

Heh, they're under the car... :D

technick29 16 years ago

Not here! Haha, well, I put this together in a hurry yesterday and didn't exactly have time to get a pic. Definitely something to work on.

technick29 16 years ago

Besides, I still have to be able to stay on them long enough for the picture to be taken... ;)

HotPinkBulb 16 years ago

Nice! now all you need is a really long pair of trousers!