What companies make good stilts for clowns?

Hi,

A good start, which is safe,easy to learn and not to expensive are builders or plasters stilts available from you large building materials supplier.

Regards

Simo.

DURASTILTS!!!! I have a pair and I LOOOOOVE them!!!

I need to get me some builder stilts to walk on in everyday life.

My co-workers say that I'm short, but I have to explain to them I just look short because I'm far away.

i wouldn't trust any commercial made stilts. a 2x4 with x shaped or plywood square foot ends, and 2x4 stud standing rests will be the strongest pair you can get. use bolts and nuts over screw and nails. plus, you can made your own prefered height, and paint them.

Welcome to the Forum Matty.

Now please don't be too upset when I saw this is not very good advice. Commercial grade stilts are well designed, in fact they are over designed for the ratings given. They are designed and constructed to be used many hours a day, day after day. Not to mention that they will weigh one half to one third as much as homemade wooden stilts.

Durastilts are very good and relatively inexpensive. $100 used / $200 New

Marshalltown's are a newer drywaller stilt with very good balance and great quality. $200 used / $300 new

Bigfoots - just about the best stilt and nearly impossible to get. $1000+ used / Empty your bank account New

These are all adjustable height, fairly lightweight aluminium based stilts. Peachy Keene sells another trusted brand of stilts that has a support on both sides of the leg, where the Durastilts and Marshalltowns have one support on the outside of the leg.

I just bought a brand new pair of nice stilts for only $89.

As an additional note... I misread the thread and thought you were looking for stilt costumes for clowns. The company I work with makes a number of custom stilt costumes. So, if anyone is intersted, I'd be more than happy to get the information for you.


All the best,

Jonathan Fudge

i wouldn't trust any commercial made stilts. a 2x4 with x shaped or plywood square foot ends, and 2x4 stud standing rests will be the strongest pair you can get. use bolts and nuts over screw and nails. plus, you can made your own prefered height, and paint them.

Not to be rude, but disregard that advice entirely. Commercial stilts are more than likely going to be superior to anything you can build yourself unless you are a professional stilt walker or some sort of engineer or welder.

If you're over 200 lbs, I'd not trust any of the timber you'll get from a local yard, warehouse, or home depot/lowe's either. I've been on high for a lot of years and most of the amateur wooden stilts I've seen crafted have met critical failure sooner or later.

Dan's advice is good. Buy something from a company that knows how to build a stilt safely. I'd look into modifying out-of-the-box (durastilt, etc) brands to fit more comfortably however.

There are some really nice stilts out there and I don't know that Fitz's list is as up to date as it could be as far as top of the line stilts. Big foot stilts for example, were once thought to be the best stilt you could get, but they're old news nowadays and I'd not rank them even in my top 3 brands these days.

That being said, I'd still follow his suggestion and buy something akin to a dura-stilt. You could easily go spend several thousand dollars on an awesome pair of stiltwerks, or a few hundred on an adjustable pair of Henry's pegs; but you should ask yourself what you are realistically going to do once you're on high and if a $100 pair of drywall stilts will serve all your needs, why pay more?


If you do decide on an amazing set of stilts, you can't go wrong with stiltwerks for a prefab stilt, or look up atom ant over at tribe.net and see if he still builds (or can turn you on to a current builder if not).

I really like the Sur Stilts S2 magnesium stilts. They are lighter than aluminum drywall stilts, very well made, and have 2 support bars for each leg. I've been using them for years and have had no complaints. They cost between $225-$300 brand new... depending on what size you get. A Google search will show you several places to get them, and you can have them shipped directly to your front door. Shop around because sometimes you can find specials like free shipping or 50% off a 2nd pair.

I've never tried Marshalltown stilts, but have heard alot of good things about them. Bigfoots & Stiltwerks are superior stilts, but a little too expensive for me. I can buy several pairs of S2's for the price of one pair of Bigfoots or Stiltwerks. And like Fitzwilly said, Bigfoots are near impossible to find now.

I would also caution anyone about buying a used pair off of ebay, Craigslist, or any other place. Sure you can save some money, but you have no idea how well the previous owner(s) maintained those stilts, or how much abuse those stilts got. Parts can & do break, and unless you know for sure how well a pair have been taken care of, you could be asking for trouble when you least expect it.

StiltFun
http://www.StiltFun.com

I've read all the above comments but I'm puzzled why no one includes a link to the various kinds of stilts suggested. I feel sure it would be helpful and easier for everyone if you did because you all must know the companies you brought yours from and recommendation is far better than someone going blindly into buying such equipment.

Stiltwerks (http://www.stiltwerks-inc.com/HTML/Products/stilts.html) - Jaywalkers are great. Their pegs as well, but I'd recommend pegs from either Henry's (http://henrys-online.de/En/E-Balance.htm#Stilts) or Unicycle Voltige (http://www.unicycle.fr/equilibre/echasses.html). They're the same peg but the price + shipping may vary by location.

I just got a pair of these http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS355&q=marshalltown+skywalker+2.0&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=13991798200986036321&sa=X&ei=pXojTp60LtLhsQLwu4TeAw&ved=0CFQQ8wIwAg and I LOVE them.

I am so grateful of the last two post that just had to say a personal thank you to you both for kindly taking the time to add the various links. I feel sure it will be much appreciated by all especially newbies or those wishing to slightly change the direction of their Clowning or dare I say add to the skills they may already have :-) Once again many thanks!

I Love Jeff Jay, the owner and creator of Stiltwerks, he is the man for sure and I am very happy for his success.

Stiltwerks (http://www.stiltwerks-inc.com/HTML/Products/stilts.html) - Jaywalkers are great. Their pegs as well, but I'd recommend pegs from either Henry's (http://henrys-online.de/En/E-Balance.htm#Stilts) or Unicycle Voltige (http://www.unicycle.fr/equilibre/echasses.html). They're the same peg but the price + shipping may vary by location.