Makiwara DIY: How To Build a Makiwara at Home [Less than 5$]
If you’re looking for a guide on how to build a Makiwara DIY at home, you’ve come to the right place!
In this article, I will guide you step-by-step to build your indoor makiwara at home.
If you don’t know what a makiwara is, my team wrote an article on everything you need to know about this tool.
Before you start reading the article, I’d like to tell you to remove any kind of distraction and concentrate fully because what you are about to read is most likely one of the best guides we have made.
Enjoy the reading!
Table of Contents
Before we get started, I’d like to tell you about my experience with Makiwara DIY.
During my training a few years back, my master made me punch against the wall, not directly on the wall but with a light padding, the problem is that after a while, I began to feel joint problems.
As a result, I went to find a solution to this problem, and the solution was the Makiwara since it is made to absorb shocks.
The problem is that the cost of a standard Makiwara on the internet is around $200, a sum that any young person struggles to afford, so I began looking on the internet for suggestions on how I might create a makiwara at home.
I watched dozens of videos, blog posts, and even watched a few movies to get ideas, but all I discovered was makiwara hard to make, until…
I came across a video with just 3000 views on youtube.
In this video of just 3 minutes the creator had built an indoor makiwara with a wooden board and a car tire. Absolutely ridiculous! I quickly said:
“This is for me!”
I called one of my best friends and said:
“Buddy, I need your help”
With less than $5 in our pocket we went to get all of the necessary material.
I’ll be honest, the first time it took me quite a while to build it, around 4-5 hours, but the second time I built it I had more experience and it took me less than 90 minutes thanks to some tips I want share with you soon!
My purpose with this blog post is to assist any martial arts practitioners who want a makiwara but do not have the option of purchasing one online, so what are we waiting for?
Let’s see how it goes!
Tools
First of all let’s see the FUNDAMENTAL tools needed to build the makiwara, without which you will be unable to build it.
– A car tire
– A wooden board
– AÂ threaded rod / if you can find them quickly, some C-shaped hooks instead of the rod
– 4 washers and 4 nuts
– a hammer
– nails
– a drill
– a tubular spanner
– a hand-saw
– a padding
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Some recommendations:
For the car tire: you can get it anywhere, from the landfill, from your car after you’ve replaced the tires or you may ask a local auto repair shop near your home that is always full of tires to throw away.
(Don’t be afraid to ask them, you’re doing them a favor by taking one away since they have to pay a company to have them removed).
Choose a fairly soft tire rather than a hard one; otherwise the makiwara will not vibrate on impact and the punches will not be well amortized.)
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Regarding the spanner, I recommend purchasing tubular spanners if you don’t already have one because screwing the washer into the tire with a wrench is really tough, however with a socket wrench it’s super super super simple.
I did it the first time with a wrench, and the second time, by luck, I ended up with this tubular spanner in my hands, and I couldn’t believe how simple it was.
If you don’t already have one, I recommend this one on Amazon since it offers the most value for money.
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For the iron bar: in case you can’t find some C-shaped hooks (I looked for it in 2-3 shops and nothing), what I did and I recommend you is to buy an threaded bar, go to a hardware store and have the hooks made to measure. The cost is minimal, less than $2-3.
These are all the advice on materials that I had to give you in order to facilitate the construction of the makiwara, now let’s start and see the various steps.
How To Build an Indoor Makiwara at Home
First of all measure the length of the tire’s diameter so you know how long to cut the wooden plank
Now that you have the length, cut the wooden board.
If you are strong enough and foresight, you can break it with a karate chop.
I’m neither strong nor precise, so I’ll use a hand-saw and a support to help me.
Now that we’ve cut it, let’s make sure we’ve done it right.
I’d say great, right?
Let’s proceed.
We now require the drill and the appropriate drill bit.
If you don’t have one, this is the one i used, I bought it on Amazon and i recommand it to you.
It has more than 35.000 reviews and it is an Amazon Choice and Amazon Best Seller.
To be sure, let’s try to punch a hole in the unwrapped tablet.
Once the hole is made, let’s make sure that the rod enters the hole.
It comes in! We will now make the 4 holes in the final tablet by taking the distance of the C-shaped hook accurately.
Now, before placing the bars into the holes, we place the board on the tire and use a pen or highlighter to draw a circle on the section of interest that we will pierce later with the drill.
ATTENTION! Make sure you mark the points in the central part of the tire and not on the inner edge otherwise you won’t be able to drill it!
Now, drill the tire.
Most probably, the drill bit will slip the first few times. To speed up the process, push on the tire while simultaneously pushing and drilling with the drill.
Now that we’ve drilled all of our holes, let’s insert the first rod into the wooden tablet, then into the tire.
Repeat for the second bar.
P.S. Don’t be concerned if your holes are too far apart or too near together! Don’t throw away the board right away, just enlarge the hole using the drill!
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Now let’s tighten the tyre, the tablet and the rod together with a washer and a nut placing them as you see in the picture.
My recommendation, tighten the washer well otherwise the washer will unscrew and fall due to the vibrations generated by the blows that the makiwara will receive.
To tighten the screw as much as possible you can use any tool you want, the first time I did it with a wrench but it was a nightmare because every time I did half a turn I had to remove it and put it back on.
The second time I built the makiwara I used a tubular spanner and believe me it’s a LIFE CHANGER. In less than 1 minute I had tightened all 4 screws, incredible, the first time it took me at least 20 minutes.
Our makiwara begins to take shape, you can use it like this if you want but we advise you not to hit the wood directly.
You can cover the wooden tablet as you prefer, I did it the first time with an old towel, but the friction when I punched made me draw a lot of blood. The very interesting alternative I’ve found is using a belt and some leather.
I show you how you can do it too!
First, make a first lap with the belt around the board to see more or less how many laps you can make.
I usually double layer each lap and usually always manage to do 6 laps total.
I recommend, the belt must not be loose, tighten it tightly, it must be pulled.
Now that you’ve seen its capacity, make sure it’s in the center and start spinning it definitively.
Now, to secure the belt you will need the nails.
The first time I did it in a spartan way with a hammer, taking more than 15 minutes, the second time it took me less than 3 minutes and I want to tell you how I did it.
Using a drill and a bit of the same thickness as the nail, make a first hole, then with the hammer the nail should fit perfectly!
Now comes a very important part, you will surely have seen that the bits of the nails emerge from the back of the tablet.
Carefully bend the points as far as possible with the use of the hammer in order to avoid bad tricks when you want to move the makiwara!
We are getting closer and closer to the final result, many will probably want to use the makiwara like this, for those who also want to add the leather, the procedure is very simple.
We take our piece of leather and see which part covers our interested area well.
Now let’s mark the leather with a pen to see the cut we need to make. We cut.
P.S. Always remember to use glover to avoid injuries!
Now, let’s do the same process as we did earlier with the belt. Drill, Hammer, Nail, Bend. Simple isn’t it?
The advantage of this type of makiwara is that you can take it anywhere, but if you want to mount it to a wall with the option of removing it, I built this small pick&drop tablet.
If you want, you can get inspired. I’m not here to explain how to do this because the article doesn’t talk about it, but trust me when I say it’s incredibly simple!
Said that, there you go, you built your first Makiwara DIY!
Have a nice time with it! 🙂
Wow😱 that’s exactly as you said, really simple. I like the idea of using the belt as a cushion, plus the leather just makes it look more original..
Thanks and love the blog