How to Make a Portable Ballet Barre With a Metal Pipe

A ballet barre is a horizontal pole set at waist height that provides dancers with a support to hold onto while exercising one side of their body. A barre is either attached to the wall of a ballet dance studio or can be set up to stand freely so that it's portable. Barres originally used to be made of wood, but are now more commonly composed of aluminum and PVC. Studios often set up barres at more than one height to accommodate shorter students.

Plan the height of your double barre. A good rule of thumb is to place the barre at waist height, but if you're constructing your barre for the general population, size it according to standard measurements. Forty-two inches is a standard height for the top barre and the lower barre is usually 10 inches lower. If you're teaching children, you'll want both barres to be lower: 20 and 28 inches for children ages 4 to 12.

Clean the pipes well with a damp cloth to remove any film.

Wrap Teflon tape around all the threads on the pieces that you will be screwing together.

Screw T-joints into both ends of one of the 6-foot pipes.

Screw the two long vertical pipes into the bottom holes of the T-joints on either end of the 6-foot pipe.

Screw the two short vertical pipes into the top holes of the T-joint on either end of the 6-foot pipe.

Screw elbows into the tops of the two short vertical pipes.

Screw the second 6-foot pipe into the elbows in between the two short vertical pipes.

Create feet for your barre by screwing T-joints at the bottom of the two long vertical pipes. Screw 1-foot pipes into both sides of both T-joints. Screw elbows into the ends of the four 1-foot pipes. Plug the elbows with the caps.