It seems like most cable spools I’ve run acrossed are kind of rickety. I was wondering what techniques you all use to stiffen them up, or if you just leave them sketchy.
-gauss
I don’t answer this from experience, but in UNipsycho Extreme,
there are a few shots of Mike King jumping on a small spool. I noticed they screwed in a piece of wood from the top of spool(as it lies down on it’s side) to bottom of the spool. They had at least three or four of these that were placed around the the circumference of the spool. Mike jumps on it, but it still moves slightly.
That seems to be the best way to solve the problem from all the videos I’ve watched. Where did you come across these spools gauss? I’ve been keeping my eyes open but haven’t had any luck yet. They’d be great to hop around on.
Andrew
wont it help to simply tighten the nuts on the bolts that go thru the spool?
tightening the bolts would keep them stable for, say, transporting or holding cable.
For all of a sudden a 150+ person jumping and hopping on the edge of the ‘flange’…you’d definetly want some reinforcement
Reinforcement? that takes all the fun out of it:D the more rickety the better. Umm, if you really want it to be solid then the flage-to-flange pieces of wood help.
These spools can be found at local hardware stores, just ask them to put one aside for you, tell them what you want it for, and then tell them that if they call you when they get one that’s empty, you’ll come in and do a little demo for them, they’re normally more than happy, because they would just throw it out anyways. These are very good for prectising, however, when you try to hop onto the top of the ones with a height of about 2 feet, and 2 feet wide, if you d’ont land in the middle, they tip on you:( which can hurt. i d’ont suggest trying this in the demo for the people at the store (unless you’re sure you can hop in the middle) if not they will laugh:D on second thought, go for the hop!
that’s all i have to say, hope it’s helpful,
-Ryan
Walking out of the Computer Science department in York today I passed a bit of a building site… all piled up were loads of cable spools, ranging from really tiny ones less than a foot wide to one wider than I am tall. Loads of the things…
Of course, I have absolutely nowhere to put them, so they’re useless to me. Bah!
Phil, just me
Building sites are empty at night Phil. People have been known to be able to sneak into such places. I am NOT suggesting you do anything illegal of course!
DISCLAIMER: If you injure yourself or end up with a guard dog’s teeth sunk in your arse, don’t blame me, you’re on your own:p
Have fun!
Graeme 
I’d just cut a couple a 2 by 4’s to size, slip them between the top and bottom of the spool and put in a couple screws.