Hanging an Indoor Batting Cage

I think you would be better off going route B and stretching it out even if it might be a little tight. My thinking is why get a big net if most of it will be sagging and on the ground?

Also, you want your hitters to have enough room to swing so they don't feel confined. It comes down to a matter of perspective in this case.

C. you make "attachments under your 9' joist that will accomodate the width of the cage. If it is 9', then if you use a 12 foot cage, you have to have an attachment that is 1 1/2 feet on each side.

I have also seen where they make a frame out of tubing that is the same demension as the net and hang the frame from the ceiling.

Our high school has the same kind of setup. I would go with plan A because if the net is stretched too tight (like in plan B), then it might not last as long and wear down quicker.

Thanks for the input guys....

I think I'm down to my last resort. Seems like every time I had an "angle" on how to do this, I ran across another obstacle. Not unlike life, and baseball, I've had to adapt and overcome.

Wanted to hang the net North and South (right angles to the rafters would've made the thing SOOOOO much easier)...BUT, the plan is to put bleachers in in a few years, and guess which walls they want to put them on? Right, North and South.

Back to the East and West walls, running WITH the rafters. Problem is, hanging a 14 foot wide net under rafters set 9 feet apart. Next idea, thanks to B25, was to run angle iron between the rafters to attach the eye-bolts too. Only to find that there are LARGE heating ducts which actually have a diameter so large that they hang BELOW the rafters, thereby making it impossible to extend the angle iron across to the next rafter.

......So.....back to my original, original plan. Maybe a little dicey, but I'm going to give it a try: gym is 111 feet long, but we're going to drill holes in each wall and sink 3/8 toggle bolts into the holes. Then run 3 cables parallell, with turnbuckles, to tighten them. Then, hook up the net and hope that the weight of the net isn't enough to pull the toggle bolts out of the wall. I think it should be ok, but I liked the idea of shorter cables (75 feet instead) attached to the rafters.

I'll let you know how it turns out!

At 111' you are likely going to need to drill through the wall and use some type of backer plate to give you more area. The ammount of tension you are going to need to support the cables and the netting may cause some problems. BTDT.

Dead on, boyinr....

Called someone at a batting cage manufacturer and he suggested the plate, too. He also gave me some other information that I'll pass along:

If you read my above posts you saw where I wanted to hang the 14 foot net under the joists (running the same direction as the joists), but wasn't sure how to do it since the joists were 9 feet apart. I figured hanging it under one set (9 feet) would be too narrow, and hanging it under 3 joists (18 feet) would be too wide.

The fellow at the cage company said that actually, hanging it from the 3 rafters, spaced at 18, would actually be good for a 14 foot net. Said it would create some tension in the top, and keep it from sagging in....couldn't quite see why that would happen, but I grilled him pretty good and he convinced me that the putting each of the cables under a joist will work very well.

So, come Monday, I'm up on a 30 foot lift trying to kill myself and drilling holes and putting on wire cable clips....ah, at least it gave me a great excuse to buy that $200 battery powered drill I always wanted!!

I'll update when we get 'er up!

I just reread your original post TCB1 and something slipped through first time I read it - you are getting to hang the net in the cathedral......uh....I mean the gym. That is amazing you get to commit sacrilege by drilling holes into sacred walls and damaging the holiness of the gym.

I asked one time to be able to hang nets in our gym and I was ridiculed, humiliated, yelled at and other stuff for having such a blasephemus idea.

Good luck with the net and enjoy it and make your guys better.

Coach,

I lucked in to an AD who only has a year left, and at this point he just shrugs his shoulders to my requests and says "Go ahead..."

I do plan on drilling when no one is around, and keeping it all quiet 'til it goes up....shhhhhhh!

That's awesome - good luck and ask for the moon because he might give it you because he doesn't care.

HALF WAY HOME!!

First, props to Coach2709.... I just noticed that you voted for the option where the net was stretched under the 3 joists, and I never posted the fact that you called it before I talked to the net specialist.

Now on with the details (for anyone bored enough to listen)...

We used the angle iron to construct an cantilevered attachment to the joists. It drops down about 8 inches under the joists and gives us a great place to attach an eye-bolt. Bolted that to the joists, drilled holes in the other walls, ran the cable through both, used a comealong to tighten it and VOILA!! 3 very tight cables way up high.

Spent tonight cutting the rest of the cable into 12 foot lengths to hang down from the horizontal cables. Need to thimble and wire clip those at each end, hook them on to snap links, and we're ready to attach the net.

Hopefully, in a few days we'll have a batting cage. I'll report back in and let anyone who's interested know.

quote:

Originally posted by TCB1:
HALF WAY HOME!!

First, props to Coach2709.... I just noticed that you voted for the option where the net was stretched under the 3 joists, and I never posted the fact that you called it before I talked to the net specialist.

Well I hate to brag but I do get lucky every once in a while.

Glad to hear it's working out and you have put a bunch of work into this. I think you will take a lot of satisfaction out of the completed product because of the hardwork. What will make it even more satisfying is when your guys start stroking the ball in there.

Keep us posted on how it goes.