Anyone that has played basketball has enjoyed the sound of the basketball making the swoosh sound. In fact, the expression “nothing but net” is one of the most popular expressions in all of sports.
This popular sound is almost always associated with a nylon net. If you’ve played long enough, however, you’ve had a chance to play on a playground court with chain nets. It’s a different sound and experience but can be even more enjoyable than the sound of the swoosh. It’s something you should experience.
What’s cool about chain nets is they’re easy to make happen. So much of the equipment used in the sports-equipment industry is made from raw materials like steel and glass. Most items, like basketball hoops, require bending, molds and other such items that make fabricating them way too expensive and troublesome for a DIY project. However, there are other products such as pull-up bars and chain basketball nets where you can get the raw materials from a hardware or lumber store and build it yourself.
Below are some instructions on how to build your own chain basketball net.
First off, this is something you should do just for the fun of it. It may be worth it if you have a bank of basketball hoops and you can buy a larger supply of chain with volume pricing or if time is an issue and you need something right away. Otherwise, you’re kind of better off just buying one. I say this because there is not a great deal of cost savings mainly because chain nets themselves aren’t that expensive.
Yes, they’re $50 but building them is going to take a couple hours and sourcing material for one net and doing it yourself is going to save you $10.
You can see by the pricing above that you’re looking at roughly $36 to $40 for a new net. I’m not sure what shipping to you will cost but shipping from Kansas to New Jersey is roughly $16. Add it up and you’re looking at $51-$55. (If you want to avoid all this and buy it brand new, I can provide it to you.)
As you can see from my receipt, you’re saving a little money by doing it yourself. What I’m describing below is more for fun than anything.
Materials needed:
Chain link– I purchased 2″ zinc-plated welded steel loops. You can save a little more money if you were to buy larger lengths of chain. For the vertical lengths, I went with 13 links which equals roughly 18″. For the horizontal links, I went with a 48″ length chain for the upper ring and 36″ for the lower ring. I had a little chain leftover but I wanted to play it safe and not run out of chain and have to go back to Home Depot.
There is a cutting station at Home Depot right next to the chain but, funny enough, there are usually bolt cutters sitting right next to it to use too.
S-Clips- I went with a small S-Clips because it’s not like this net is load bearing. I also wanted something that was a little pliable so I could crimp it easier. I went with four packs of four.
Hang each individual 13-link chain from the rim with open S-Clips.
From here feed the top horizontal chain through each of the 5th links from the top all the way around and use one S-clip to attach the chain together. When attaching the chain together, I also attached the S-Clip to one the vertical chain in the rear of the net. One item of note, the top horizontal chain had exactly 39 links.
I then fed the bottom horizontal chain through the 4th link from the bottom. With this phase, I actually cut the chain into three equal lengths of seven links and attached them with S-Clips. I did this because the chain needed to be secured on the bottom to not get tangled and unravelled.
Your last step is to crimp all the S-Clips to the rim.
A couple items of note. I put roughly 100 balls through the net. (Mikan drill baby!) There were times when the chain wasn’t perfectly aligned but it corrected itself as time went on. I will keep an eye on my net to see if I have to adjust the chains or add S-Clips.
I hope you enjoyed this and, if you ever need sports equipment for your playground, school or home, feel free to reach out to me at www.oncallsports.com.