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Balance boards are used by racket technicians to measure how “head light” or “head heavy” a racket is. It’s an important measurement for experienced players–a player used to a head heavy racket would not be pleased with a head light racket, and vice versa.  Fortunately, you can tweak how head light or head heavy a racket is through weights and lead tape.  But without a way to measure the balance, you’re pretty much just eyeballing it. Enter the balance board…

So after messing with a bunch of lead tape trying to weight a racket correctly, I realized I really needed a balance board. Not wanting to throw down the cash for a commercial one, I decided to go DIY and devise one myself. This is super simple to make, less than 30 minutes to put together, and should work like a charm, and above all, is CHEAP. The whole thing cost less than $10.

Here’s all it took:
• 1 melamine shelf from Lowe’s (storage aisle) ($4.95)
• 1 3/16″ dowel from Lowe’s (~.$69)
• 1 pkg of eye screws that will fit the dowel (~$1.49)
• 2 3/8″ stop nuts (~$.19 ea)
• 1 measuring tape from Michaels’ ($.69)
• plus some glue to glue on the measuring tape & ruler to measure

Construction is easy, just measure where you want the eye screws, pre-drill two small holes for them, and screw them in. Make sure they line up straight and when the dowel is inserted, it is level. Then just trim off the dowel so it’s slightly wider than the eye screws. My base board (melamine shelf) is 24″ long and 12″ wide. Then mark the center and glue on the measuring tape. That’s about it.

Since I started with 0″ under the dowel (balance point), 13.5″ is even balance on measuring tape. Since the tape is marked off in 1/8″ increments, each increment is 1 point HL or HH, depending on which way you move. A racquet that is <13.5″ is head light a racquet >13.5″ is head heavy.