DIY Tap Boards

This post is all about how to make a DIY Tap Board.

But first – who is this for and why do you need a Tap Board?

Dance Studios

If you own a dance studio, you are probably looking at this post because:

You don’t want to ruin/destroy your expensive dance vinyl or the floorboards underneath
Or, your vinyl flooring sounds dull and quite frankly, pretty crap for tap!

Home Use

If you want a tap board for use at home, you can use this design! It can go over the top of any of these non suitable home surfaces

Carpet – it has no sound!
Tiles – protect your tiles (which are dangerously slippery)
Concrete – protect expensive tap shoes if your child wants to tap on concrete in the garage!

Alternatives

Plywood – this will probably work fairly well but may become slippery over time. It is also fairly expensive if you’re getting a lot for a studio. It will be thick and heavy too. The thin ply won’t be flat. It will warp. Even thicker ply is likely to do the same to a small degree. It’s just not very practical.

MDF – We will use MDF in our design, but this by itself is NO good. Why? It is DANGEROUSLY slippery. Please do not just use plain MDF.

Cheap Lino – this might be OK on concrete for home use, but it won’t work on a proper dance floor with a vinyl ‘Tarkett’ already installed. There will be no sound.

The below video shows tapping on various flooring types:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=757152804910481&ref=sharing

Directly on our 5mm Imogen Soft Shoe Vinyl
With our 2mm Vivienne Hard Shoe Vinyl just sitting on top of our soft shoe (many studios WANT this solution to work – but unfortunately it doesn’t…)
Using the DIY tap boards as described in this post
Using our 2mm Vivienne Hard Shoe Vinyl on a hard surface (this is how it sounds if you install this in your studio)

You can read more about the Dance Vinyl “Tarkett” that we sell and request a sample here:

https://inspiredancesupplies.com.au/product/dance-floor-sample-pack/

How To Make It

It is really, really easy.

Step 1

Buy some 6mm MDF from Bunnings.

We suggest, for studios, getting around 900 x 900mm boards. These are big enough for stationary Tap work, but small enough to be fairly light and easy to move and store between classes. For travelling work, you can stack a bunch up in a line. It’s not perfect, but works pretty well.

For home use where you won’t move it, you could go bigger.

Options from Bunnings are: