Upgrading the Instep Portable

The Instep Portable basket is a fairly cheap all metal portable disc golf basket. It breaks down easily, can be carried by one person, and even fits in my small trunk. As with many other inexpensive baskets, it does not catch nearly as well as a (insert your favorite target here).

With all of the snow on the ground, I have not gotten nearly the amount of rounds that I would have liked to this winter. So I dragged my basket into my basement for putting practice. It's not a big basement, but it still is good for working on that muscle memory.

After hanging a blanket by the rafters behind the basket, I decided it would be a good idea to shrink the target zone for practice. I took some nylon twine, threaded it through the links about five down and tied it tightly. It seems that this has greatly improved the catchability of the basket (even more than when I added some inner chains).
My major complaint with the Instep was that the upper entrapment section had the same diameter as the lower entrapment section. A lot of putts that should have been good fell outside the basket, especially higher softer putts that were dead center left/right. By bringing the chains in, discs that fall straight down are now all caught. Even those putts that are just below the upper entrapment section are caught better as the chains there are taut at a 45 degree angle, deflecting the disc down.

As an added bonus since the chains are closer together, blow throughs are reduced.

Now that my basket is better, I hope my putting gets better too. :-)

[skinner]

...though I could edit my reply after adding the comment, but I can't...anyway...

I can add more chains to the basket with minimal cost (I was pricing s-hooks at Home Depot and they want way to much...). I think I will buy light-use chain that can be bent easily and just ziptie the cheap chain to the outer ring between the original chain locations. Then install a 3 inch ring at the pole above the original chains and just bend the cheap chain around the ring. This will make the chain configuration look somewhat like a MachV...somewhat... :) I will post another pic once complete...

[skinner]

I have also modified my InStep but I wanted to make the target smaller (read as tougher to get in the basket). So I used weed eater line (.105) in the seventh link down and tied is as tight as possible. I also raised the basket up to reduce the opening from where the chains hang to the top of the basket (at the lower pin setting the the distance was approx. 22 inches, after raising the basket to the upper pin position the distance reduced to approx. 17 inches).

Here is a before picture:

Here is an after picture: