Building a Onewheel Balance Board. With the growing popularity of aftermarket Onewheel rails and other 3rd party accessories. Many Onewheel enthusiasts probably have a box full of Onewheel parts and spares, enough to be ready for almost any situation. 
A great way to use up those spares, as well as to challenge and train your skills is to build a…
DIY Onewheel Balance Board
Training on a balance board strengthens and core muscles in a challenging and fun way. perfect for off days when the weather won’t cooperate.
Why Do You Need a Balance Board For Your Onewheel Training?
Using a balance board to train your board skills is not a new thing. Balance Board trainers like the Indo Board and the Bongo board have been used by athletes for decades. With benefits like improved core strength, better balance and coordination, and proprioceptive awareness. Even if you don’t ride a Onewheel, it makes sense to add some type of balance training into your exercise routine.
Regardless of whether you buy one or build one, a balance board should be part of your Onewheel progression.
Inspiration For This Onewheel Balance Board Build
The Float Life – TFL Balance Board
In recent times, Onewheel Pro teams and riders have pushed the sport to new levels. To help their athletes progress, The Float Life recently released their TFL Balance Board. The beauty of the TFL Balance Board is it comes loaded with their top-tier flagship products so you can swap out parts, to pimp your Onewheel with industry-leading accessories. Win-Win. 
TFL knows their clientele, pricing the Balance Board at $420.69 has to be the best price ever. And an extremely good deal if you take into account the individual prices for each of the components.
OneTrickWheel – FeelWheel
The FeelWheel from OneTrickWheel is another Onewheel focused Balance Board available for purchase. Less of a Balance Board and more of a Training Board. The FeelWheel allows you to get a “feel” for your Onewheel without the weight and potential injury. FeelWheel from OneTrickWheel. Check It Out!
Onewheel Balance Board – Design Challenges
The seed has been planted, so to speak. Now I’ll go over some of my thought processes and how I made my Onewheel Balance Board come to life.
Filling the space where the Hub and Wheel goes.
Locking the rails. Without the hub bolted in place, the rails can easily twist and flex the other components holding the Onewheel Balance Board together.
Internal frame/ structure material? Wood VS Metal
If you were going to manufacture and make available a product that is designed to hold Onewheel rails together for use in a Onewheel Balance Board then metal would be an obvious choice. But for the average DIYer, skills, tools, and sourcing materials may keep metal out of reach. Wood, on the other hand, is easy to source. And, most major cutting can be done for free by the supplier. Conveniently, the Onewheel XR rail height is 1.5 inches, which matches the actual size of 2” lumber.
It’s meant to be.
Getting The Wood Cut
Home Depot cannot rip the lumber with their panel saw and their chop saw is also limited to chop cuts. We had to go to our local Windsor Plywood location and they were happy to cut it for us. We got a Wood insert cut at 8 x 23 x 1-½. This is a tad narrow, and we used some plastic to shim it out. If you are doing this for yourself, you may want to cut it a bit thicker around 8-3/32 +/- 1/16th of an inch.
The Balance Point
The Float Life uses a wobble cushion for the balance point on the TFL Balance Board. Coincidentally, I had just purchased a wobble cushion for my son and the manufacturer offered a free one for a positive review. I took them up on the offer. And honestly, after using the board for a bit, a wobble cushion is perfect for this.
Onewheel Rail Screws
Screw, screws, and more Onewheel screws, Leftover from the multitude of bolt-on accessories I’ve purchased from time to time. You probably have a similar collection. If you do then all you need to screw your Onewheel Balance Board Together are a handful of 10-32 Wing Nuts. If not, well no problem. Your local bolts and fasteners wholesaler can help you out.
Let’s Quickly Touch On Onewheel Rail Screw Sizes.
Depending on what accessories you run, your Onewheel rails will be held together with all or some of the following 10/32 Flat Socket Cap Screw sizes. As well as other assorted hardware. I will only list the 10/32nd sizes here as that is all that is needed for this project. 1”, ⅞”, ¾”, ⅝”, ½”, ⅜”
Assembling Our Onewheel Balance Board
If you have even a little experience with Onewheel assembly, then taking on this type of project will be a breeze.
Step-1 The Parts List
The Parts We Have Accumulated To Build Our Onewheel Balance Board
- Onewheel Rails
- Front and Back Onewheel Bumpers
- 2 x Rear Onewheel Footpads
- V3 Float Plates
- 8 x 23 x 1-½ Wood Insert
- 4 x 3” Construction Screws
- Black Varathane One Step
- Rail Screws (Details Above)
- 10 x 10-32 Wing Nuts
Now I have all the parts and have settled on a design, it’s time to put this thing together.
Step-2 Assemble The Frame
We used the 10-32 wing nuts in place of the controller and battery housing screw holes. The V3 Float Plates fill the void left by the missing battery case as well as add a lot of rigidity to the frame structure.
Step-3 Stain and Seal The Wood Insert
Everything looks better with a fresh coat of paint. Two coats of Varathane One-Step has the centerpiece looking just that. 
#ProTip: Wrap your brush with cling-wrap between coats. Just don’t wait too long.👍
Step-4 Screw The Wood In Place
To prevent the wood from splitting, drill a ⅛” pilot hole before screwing in the 3” Construction Screws 
Step-5 Install The Footpads
The Footpads install as normal. Except we use two rear Footpads. Those who have spare concave 
Step-6 Don’t Forget The Badge 😎
Here is a nugget for you: If you made it this far, thank you for reading, and thanks for your time. I will send a badge to the first five people to drop a legit comment using the comment box at the bottom. (Due to spam, All comments will be held for moderation before posting) 
Will It Float?
Balancing on one of these balance boards seems like it would be easy but it is quite challenging. And having the ability to adjust the difficulty by adjusting the pressure in the cushion is a great feature. The cushion works so well with the Onewheel frame, locking in between the bumpers and Float Plates like it was meant for it.
Regardless of whether you buy one or build one, a balance board should be part of your Onewheel progression.
Have you used the TFL Balance Board or OneTrickWheel FeelWheel? Share your experience in the comments box below.
Check Out These Popular Onewheel DIY Posts
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- DIYE Onewheel Accessories
Where To Find Onewheel Accessories
- All The Best Onewheel Accessories
- The Best Onewheel Products On Amazon
- Onewheel Pint Accessories, Where To Get Them
As always, thank you for reading, and don’t forget to check out our social media channels for more Onewheel related stoke.
Sideways 4 Life!
The Sideways Movement – Onewheel Blog – thesidewaysmovement.com
Another amazing post! Love how simple and detailed you made the directions! Going to build a growler version for the winter. Thanks for the links as well.
Legend ☝
Thats awesome! Was looking at TFL balance board but the price tag was way too high. This is good to use up all the extras i have. Such a good idea and good step by step. Thanks! 🙂
Legend ✌
Oh my goodness did I make first 5 ?
Such a rabbit hole of a night.
I just got some WTF rails and I saw one of the features was they got rid of the side hole, TFL called it redundant. Seemed so but I thought I’d look it up. I stumbled into this artical somehow, and thought with the rails I take off my board I could do this! This is awesome, I know I only had to read, and (I think) im already first 5. But I wanted to lyk this is super useful and I think Ill actually do this DIY
Btw, so glad I read it, I totally woulda made one with no inner stability if I only looked at the pic😅🤙🏼Hopefully that woulda occurred to me before stepping on and ruining my now extra rails tho. lol. Very helpful
Yeah mate! I’m glad you found it useful. Legend number 3
Thanks so much for this. Now I’m on the hunt for some used Onewheel parts to construct my board. I’ll have one made in just a few months for sure. Hope to see you in a future trick workshop!!
You are in Daniel. Legend Number 4. Thanks for taking the time to comment. I will reach out to you next week for your address.
Received!! Thanks so much. I’m in the process of gathering parts.
Sweet. Good to hear!
Keep on riding.
I might be late to the party but I want to say thanks for all your hard works putting this guide and parts list together.
I’m new to the onewheel community with my first board (GT) coming early March🤞
I am also extremely clumsy so my wife was looking at different balance boards. This is Perfect.
Haha, William, Looks like I’m the one whos late. You are Legend number 5
Awesome Bro! 🙂 Thanks a lot!
I am already collecting parts for the balance board build.
Looks like I missed the badge run, but I just mocked up my old XR rails with bumpers and rear footpads Just need the wood insert, wing nuts, and float plates! Such a great post.
Thanks for your comment. I still use my OW Balance board frequently. Such a fun way to keep your balance skills sharp.