I mentioned in my post yesterday that I had a heavy rope that I had made myself. I call it “The FrankenRope” after Frankenstein’s monster, because it’s made up of a bunch of hobbled together parts I had around the shop.
My goal when building the rope was to be able to switch out the actual rope part easily so I could use one set of handles with different weight ropes. Modelled after a very expensive set of Crossrope handles that I’d seen online through the Jump Rope Dudes.
So starting with an existing set of plastic handles that I had on a cheap old $8 skipping rope I bought that broke the second time I used it, I set to work! The first thing I did was to purchase 2 x 1.5 inch bolts that fit through the bearing that was in the end of the handles. (See Image 1 in the gallery below) By drilling a small hole through the end of that bolt, I was able to put a split ring through the hole which gave me something to attach the rope to. The split ring also held the bolt in place.
The second step was to make the rope. I used plastic coated, 1/4 inch aircraft cable for the rope. I cut a piece slightly longer than the recommended 9 foot length for my height, and doubled over the ends with Loop Compression Sleeves to create a loop at each end of the rope.
Then all that was left was to hook the wire loop to the split ring and have at it! Well, as it turns out, the 1/4 wire was going to be a pain to feed through the split ring every time I wanted to change ropes so I used an S hook to add in the clips you can see in pictures 3 & 4 below to make it so you just pull a button and remove the rope rather than have to remove it from the split ring. WAY easier!
As it turned out, it became a mute point because I never made a second rope to attach to it. I went to the local home hardware to buy a thinner aircraft cable to use as a speed rope attachment for the handles and they didn’t have anything smaller. I ended up buying the Everlast Speed Rope for way less than it would have cost me to just buy Aircraft Cable.
Ultimately, this heavy rope is great for a cardio workout. It’s heavy enough to give your arms a really good workout while you’re swinging it. I keep saying that I’d like to get an even heavier piece of Aircraft Cable to make it even more challenging but I’ve yet to do that.