How To Build A Brush Box For A Horse Jump

Building a brush box for a horse jump is a little time consuming, but is so worth it! Having your own set of jumps requires many different components in order to get your horse used to seeing different jumping elements. The brush box is an excellent filler to add to your collection. It doesn’t matter if you ride hunters or jumpers. The idea is getting your horse used to anything he may encounter at a show, or sometimes even out on the trail.

You can make your set of brush boxes any height, and length that you want them to be. But I would suggest starting out with smaller boxes, and then build taller boxes as your jumping progresses. Just like everything you do with jumping, you want to start smaller, and as you progress, make the jumps larger. Not only is this safer, but it will also help to build your confidence along with your horse so you can get over larger obstacles.

But enough talk, let’s get into building some brush boxes!

For this example, the brush boxes I have built are 24” tall, and 8’ in total length. Each box is 4’ long.

Materials List

These are the materials you will need to build a pair of boxes like these:

(2) 2”x 6” x 8’ wood ($12.00)

(1) 2” x 4” x 8 wood ($3.00)

(6) 1” x 4” x 8’ wood ($12.00)

(1) 1” x 2” x 8’ wood ($2.00)

1 ½” decking screws ($9.00 for a box)

3” decking screws ($9.00 for a box)

Kilz 2 Primer ($16.00 per gallon)

1 Qt Rustoleum oil based enamel ($9.00)

 

You will also need a sander, circular saw, or something similar, paint brushes, tape measure, and an 18 volt drill.

 

Building The Brush Box

To get started, you need to cut 1 2×6 in half, so measure off 48” and cut. Then the other 2 x 6, you will cut into 24” pieces. This will give you 4 pieces.

Now you will take a 48” section of wood, and attach a piece of 24” wood to each side. You want to be sure then ends line up, so that it will be flat when you stand it up. Do this exact same thing with the other pieces of 2×6 wood that you have already cut.

Now it is time to cut the 1×4 wood. Measure off 43”, you will get 2 pieces from each piece of lumber. When you are done, you should have 12 43” long pieces of 1 x 4 wood.

Then measure in 20” sections on the 1×2 wood, and cut those pieces.

And the last piece of wood you will be cutting is the 2×4. Measure 16”, and 32” and cut. These will be your feet on either end of the completed box. You will have enough of the 2×4 left that you can make extra feet, if you wanted to put a foot on each side of both brush boxes, but I chose to only do one end of each box. This way I can have them meet up in the center, and have it look like one solid brush box.

After you have cut all of your wood, sand all of the sides so there are no rough edges, it will give it a more finished and professional appearance.

Now you can primer paint all of the wood. I like to let one side dry completely before flipping to paint the other side. Once all of your wood has been primer coated, now you can paint all of the pieces with the Rustoleum paint. Again, allow each side to completely dry before painting the other side!

Now is the time to start attaching the 1 x 4 wood to the 2 x 6 bases. Do one side at a time, and complete one box before starting the other one. This is important, because you will want to lay your boxes side by side to make sure the 1×4’s are in the same places so they will match up when you stand up the boxes.

You can attach the 1 x 2 wood to the inside center of each side of the box. I chose to do this with only the center 1×4 connected because it was easier to screw it in, but you can do it however you want.

Now that your boxes are built, you can attach the feet to one side of each box, these will be on the outside. But like I said earlier, if you want to put a foot on each end of each box, you can. I also cut one corner off on the feet, to give it a sloped appearance, and I just like the way it looks, but you don’t have to do this.

All that is left to do is do some touch up painting to cover all of the screw heads, and any mess ups you may have had while building the boxes.

Once the paint is dry, your brush box is ready to be used!

The total cost to build this brush box was only $62.00. That isn’t bad, when you consider if you bought this from a retail jump builder it would cost you at least $239.00, and it isn’t really a true brush box and it isn’t made from wood. But in my opinion, it is a good idea to look to these jump companies for ideas of how you can make your own brush box.

And if you feel really ambitious, you could even make some money buy building these to sell. It’s up to you. That is the best part of this, you can do whatever you want! You can make taller boxes, or shorter ones. You can make them any color you like, and you can add greenery inside the box, or leave it empty, it’s all up to you!

If you do decide to build this jump box, I would love to see how yours turn out, share a link in the comments below, and share your hard work with all of us!

Happy jump building!