One thing I don’t like about the chop cup is the metal cup that most people use. It looks classy, but that doesn’t fit the aesthetic of my show. When I did the PCAM convention, I was chatting with James Cielen, and he mentioned the metal cup doesn’t fit. He was 100% right, and I didn’t like using a metal chop cup.
I finally found some time to make my own chop cup out of a coffee cup. I started with two matching coffee cups. The reason I started with two was in case I messed one up, I wouldn’t have to start over. If both turned out, I would have a backup.
I glued the magnets into the bottom of the cups and for what I wanted, I glued them off center. Then I poured some resin inside the cups to make a new bottom and to hide the magnet.
In the picture below on the right, you can see the resin about halfway cured.
One of the chop cups I poured too much resin into and the magnet wasn’t quite strong enough to hold the ball like I wanted it to. The other cup turned out perfect!
Now I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the ball. Is it going to stay a ball or something else? At the very least I think I’m going to switch to a rubber ball. For my Stand Up Chop Cup routine from my 2025 lecture notes I need a ball that doesn’t bounce as the ball gets dropped. I just bought a set of yellow Bounce No Bounce Balls and I’m going to try to put a magnet inside of it.
-Louie