Dangerous ricochets from bottom of sportscreen

[dirojx1113]

I'm sure I can't be the only one dealing with this. I have an impact screen attached to the sportscreen roller that has a pocket at the bottom for the weighted bar just like the sportscreen.

I've hit a couple worm burners and when they hit that bottom bar they go WILD, if I don't do something someone is going to get hurt. One bounced off the bar and flew up into the ceiling putting a huge dent in the drywall.

I thought that covering it up with pool noodles would have helped but they don't do much, so in the interim I'm just putting an old moving blanket at the bottom.

Anyone think of a better solution?

[dirojx1113]

Quick update, I bought a 10' length of 3/4" pvc electrical conduit to put in the bottom channel and glued an elbow on each side. Weighs it down nice and no need for padding as the conduit compresses on impact.

[schwame]

The pipe insulation is good to use but the golf ball compresses right through that stuff and bad ricochets will still happen off the metal. I second using a foam gutter guard in front of it as well. As soon as I added that the problem went away. I've tested hitting into it and I can't reproduce any bad ricochets now.

I don't have a close-up pic of it but you can see the foam gutter guards at the bottom and they just blend in with the setup. I used 3 pieces and glued/taped them together so they look like 1 piece.

rdeyer I just wanted to follow-up. Your picture looks amazing. What are you using for ceiling protection? How does it work? How did you install it? thanks in advance

[rdeyer]

The ceiling protection is an 8x4' piece of plywood, painted black, with foam sound panel glued to it. I have 2x4's on the back side to help give the thing rigidity. It's mounted to my ceiling using eye hooks and metal clips.

It looks nice and works well, but truthfully i over engineered it. I think netting would have looked good and done just as well tbh.