my wife and i often drill pickleball skills, and go through a lot of balls feeding specific shots, which wind up all over the court. as much as I like my gamma hopper, which has an easy “push and trap” feature to collect the balls back into the hopper, she’s never really been into it (it can get kinda heavy). she started shopping for a tube picker-upper tool like the ones at the courts, and i said, “hold on, i’ll just make you one!” she skeptically agreed, with the stipulation that i not spend more than $25 on it.
challenge accepted. 💪🏻
the next day i went to my local hardware store in search of price-limit friendly tube options, ideally 3″ in diameter and about 3′ in length. the trick was that all the pipe came in 10′ lengths, and you had to buy the whole thing whether you wanted it all or not. a single pipe would break my budget, so i scanned the scraps section; there were plenty of 1-2″ pipes, but nothing larger.
as i’m wont to do, i wishfully re-checked the price of full lengths and began weighing the options of trying a different/cheaper store or coming up with some reasonable excuse of why i’d need an additional pipe (perhaps make two pickup tools?). the cost limitation won out, so i started my way to the front of the store to leave.
but upon approaching the scraps box a second time, i spied with my little eye something wide and black hidden in the back corner of the box that i’d initially missed. could it be? YES, it was a 3″ pipe! i snagged it and brought it to the counter where the clerk confirmed it was 4′ long — in other words, perfect for my use! next i located a flexible pvc cap and was on my way.
$20.16 total. [fist pump.]
at home i sanded the ends, removed the metal clamp from the cap — the fit and direction of force for picking up balls does not require it — and used an x-acto to cut out the middle of the cap, just shy of a pickleball’s diameter (~2.9″).
a thing of such beauty needed an official and properly descriptive name, so in came vinyl stickers to the rescue:
however, this bespoke tube is longer than the ones we found online, and has a whopping capacity of 18 balls (half our hopper!), so an appropriate suffix was added:
and does this guy mean business! a serious face, for a serious job.
no more bending. happy lower back. clean court bliss.
my wife sighed and rolled her eyes at the finished product, but i know she’ll proudly wield it next time we’re at the courts.
challenge complete. 🏆
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