Make Hula Hoop Instructions

(This page is about how to make a hoop of your own.  Related posts are:

I sell both new and used hoops to individuals, at fairs and festivals, and at hoop dance classes.  If you can’t get to one of the events I’m attending, give me a call and maybe we can work out a time and a place to meet.

Groups that need a larger number of hoops, such as day care centers and youth after-school programs, may find it more economical to make their own hula hoops. Hoops made from irrigation tubing are much stronger and last longer, under harder use, than hoops you buy at a grocery or discount store.

Everything I’ve learned about making hoops follows.

Material for making hula hoops

Most people who make hoops buy tubing at Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse.  We buy the black irrigation tubing, which is sold in the back of the plumbing department.

DO NOT USE Pex water line.  It’s pretty (red blue & white), but too soft to hold the hoop shape.

I buy 100′ rolls.  If I were selling more hoops, I’d buy it in the 400′ roll, which is a little cheaper per foot.  100′ of irrigation tubing will make 7 or 8 very big (44-50″ diameter) hoops, or as many as 15 tiny hoops for little children.

Hoops are held together with a double barbed, male-male connector that is sold in a rack right next to the tubing.  You’ll need to match the size of the connector to the size of the tubing.  Connectors come in bags of 10 (cheaper) or individually.  Make sure all the connectors are the right size for your tubing–they can get mixed up on the shelf.

Irrigation tubing comes in a variety of diameters and weights.  I vary the size tubing I buy, so my inventory contains a range of weights.

• “Fast” hoopers prefer ¾” 160# tubing.  This is a bit harder on your hands, but fast.
• “Slower” hoopers might prefer 1” 100# tubing.  It’s fairly soft, but two hoops are hard to manage when you’re hooping twins.
• Children’s hoops and juggler hoops can be made of ¾” 100# hooping, but that weight is not for adult-sized hoops.  It deforms badly at speed when made larger than 30”.  It’s also good for twins, when you need to manage two hoops.
• Extra-large hoops can be made of 1″ 160# tubing, which is expensive.  However, the heavy weight tubing creates a heavy weighted hoop, which is good for beginners, serious exercisers, and men, without it being too big to fit in the truck.

The parts numbers for the tubing at Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse are:

• 1 inch 100 PSI : #24169
• 3/4 inch 160 PSI : #24195
• 3/4 inch 100 PSI: # 24166

If you’re going to make a few hoops, go ahead and buy the $10-13 tubing cutters.  They look like strange scissors.  They leave a cleaner cut than a saw and are easier to use.  (You don’t need the $25 pair.)

Scrap or leftover tubing

Plumbers, landscaping contractors, and other people in the construction and agriculture trades sometimes have scraps of irrigation and water line tubing left over from a job.   I’ve made up a lot of hula hoops from scraps, but I also have some tubing that never fit a connector I could find.

Cutting irrigation tubing

Usually, I cut up the whole roll into hoop lengths and make up the hoops all in one session.  If I don’t need inventory, I may leave the “raw” hoops undecorated.  If you leave cut tubing unconnected, it will straighten out and you will have a flat spot on your hoop.

Hula Hoop Sizing

Circumference = 2 * pi * r,  where r = radius.  2r = diameter.  Therefore, the length of tubing you need to cut is pi * height.

• Beginner hoops:  shoulder-to-sternum height.
• Intermediate hoops:  waist height.
• Serious dance hoops:  hip height.
• Very fast hoops:  inseam height.

In other words, if you’re making hoops for a crowd, you’ll want a range with at least one at 60”, several at 46-48”, and then the rest as needed.  Some groups have many more small children than others.

I don’t measure length any more; I simply curl the tubing against an existing hoop and cut it to match, or not, as needed.

I have a 6’ diameter hoop made of 2” tubing.  Many men are comfortable hooping in that hoop where they won’t try a smaller or fancier one.  I put a run of gaffer tape around the inside of the hoop to give it grip for shoulder hooping, and it’s wiffled (has holes drilled into it) and sings at different pitches depending on its speed.

Joining the ends

I use boiling water to heat the ends of the tubing one at a time, and then slip the connector in. Let the first end cool completely before forming the hoop into a circle and connecting the second end.  Some patient people heat the ends with a hair dryer.

For smaller hoops (24-30”),  bend the connector a little to prevent a flat spot in the hoop.  Connectors bend easily if you heat them in boiling water for 30 seconds.  Use very long nails (landscape spikes) or strong knitting needles, or pencils, to hold the connector while you bend it just a bit off straight.  Drop the bent connector into cold water to set the new shape.

If you’re making a cloth-covered hoop, put the cloth sleeve over the hoop before joining the second end.

If you’re making a water hoop, pour one cup of water into the hoop before sealing.  Water in the hoop makes heating the second end a bit trickier.

It’s easy to kink the hoop when connecting the second end.  Keep the hoop round while the tubing cools and have a wet dish cloth handy to quench the heat.

Decorating hoops

• Some people can dance with untaped hoops, perhaps sanded for a bit more grip.
• Spray paint tends to come off on whatever the hoop hits.
• Gaffer tape and decorative metallic tape (“sparkly”) are the best to use for decorating hoops.
• Gaffer tape, available on the web (not locally in Raleigh), is cloth tape with a non-residue, non-oozing glue.  It comes in lots of colors, some of which are ugly.  It comes in 2”, 1”, and ½” rolls.  Although the 2” rolls can be torn lengthwise if needed, I’ve taken to using 1” as my widest tape because it handles easily.  It’s a good width to start with.  ½” tape is pretty for accent colors.
• Electrician’s tape, which can be found at hardware stores, should not be used:  most of it has been treated with a fire retardant, and these chemicals are not good for children.

I like the fluorescent colors of gaffer tape—yellow, orange, green, and pink—much more in real hoops than I expected and will buy large rolls on my next order.  Kodak yellow is another good hoop color, as is red, Pro-Gaff’s blue, and burgundy.  Purple is more “lilac,” in my mind.  Teal is useful.  Black is handy if you want to add grip to a dark hoop.

DO NOT USE duct tape oozes, which oozes nastily when it gets warm and fails completely in high heat, as might be found in the trunk of a car.

An average hoop consumes about 25’ of tape per color.  Sparkle tape is sold in rolls of 25’; allow one roll per hoop.  You may have some leftover.  You can cut 1” tapes in half lengthwise and get more mileage out of them.

• The silver holographic tapes are pretty in the sun; most of the colored holographic tapes are much prettier to look at when they are still than they are when the hoop is moving.
• Glitter tape is a bear to tape with—it tends to wander and it does not “untape” to correct a mistake.
• Although the tape itself isn’t much to look at, some of the best hoops are made with the plain mirror tape.  (BTW, “brass” = very yellow, compared to a more sedate “gold.”)
• Glow-in-the-dark tape is fun.  It is also very slick.
• Highway reflector tape looks better when the hoop’s not moving than it does in motion, and it’s hard to get on the hoop straight.
• Aluminum tape for ductwork makes a very “high tech”-looking hoop, but it needs additional gaffer tape for grip.

Taping patterns vary.  If I’m making a sparkle hoop, I put the metallic tape down first.  It sticks better to the hoop material than it does to gaffer tape.  Then I’ll add a gaffer tape, and perhaps another accent color, or not.  It can be fun to wrap backwards, spiraling the opposite direction, and to weave two different colors of tape over each other.  Do not try this on your first hoop.  I also like “quartering” a hoop with different patterns or colors on each section.

Sources for hoop tape

I currently buy gaffer tape from www.identi-tape.com, a supplier to tape users in many fields, and sparkle tape from www.mccormicksnet.com, a supplier to the marching band and drill team community. Within McCormick’s site, select Guard, then Equipment and Supplies, to get to the tape pages. Both gaffer and sparkle tapes can be ordered from www.identi-tape.com, which also has the DOT and glow-in-the-dark tapes. Their holographic tapes may well be the brightest available.