DIY Tubing

Here in Phoenicia Tubing is a fun way to pass the time.  In fact it is one of the main ways we get away from the heat up here. 

Now if this is your first time I highly recommend Town Tinker Tube Rentals.  They are supper nice, and really know what they are doing. 

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Jeff and I went for our first tube ride with them.  They know what is safe, and they have everthing you need for a fun afternoon. 

But after Jeff and I went tubing we wanted to be able to do this all the time.  In order for us to afford tubing often we needed to make our own.  We also saw that our house is right next door to the tubing drop off.  That means if we have our own stuff, we can just walk to the stream and take the "tube bus" home for only $5 each.  What could be more perfect than that? 

Our little Esopus creek that we tube on is actually quite shallow, so we had to make tubes with wood seats (like Town Tinker).  

We bought the inner tubes from Twon Tinker Tube Rental, but then bought the wood, rope and all the rest. 

We used a table top, for our seats.

Jeff is a math teacher, so he figured out how to find the four even sides of the wood.  I'll leave you to figure out this photo tutorial, or do what I was going to do...eyeball  it. 

Are you channeling your inner high school geometry?  I'm sure this makes sense to your teenager.  (Actually it is not that hard to understand)

Make sure to make your holes a bit bigger than the width of the rope (we didn't and it made threading these holes difficult). 

Next,  paint and seal the top.  We did five or more layers of polyurethane over our names and "symbols" (so we can keep them individualized). 

We put our last name to distinguish our tubes from TT.

We strung the holes so that both ends were on the bottom, with the rope wrapping around the tube twice.

One inner tube without seat.

This is the bottom of the tube.

We added washers and nuts to hold the rope in place then knotted them.  To keep the rope from fraying we then burned the ends closed (it is plastic so it just melted).  Jeff and I forgot to wrap an old hose around the rope, do this because our rope almost broke on the first run.  We have to re-do our and do that for the next run. 

Add some handles (you will need them) and you are done.

That's it!!! We had our tubes ready, now we need our life jackets (and helmets if the water is high) and we are ready. 

I want to warn you that tubing is dangerous and if you want to try this make sure the river is safe, and you have a buddy.  I highly recommend life vests.  In the end, tube at your own risk!!!

Have fun.  Jeff and I had our fist run with our own tubes today and it was great.  I can't wait to do it again.