It’s becoming more and more rare to be able to find a beautiful piece of wood that is sixteen feet long. There are just fewer and fewer oak and maple trees. However, since we own the forests, we’ve decided to harvest them respectfully. First of all, I can’t think of a more just usage for a beautiful piece of wood, than a ballet barre. Even after the user is done with it, it can be used for a handrail or many other things.
The diameter of 1-15/16” makes for the maximum usage of quarter sawn lumber. Quarter sawn lumber is how it comes in rough and you can’t make it round any bigger than that size without skipping some spots. Every inch of every ballet barre is hand inspected, rotated and identified to discover any knots, splits, checks, etc. All of these imperfections are cut out. So, what we actually sell is a structurally sound, beautiful piece of wood, hand sanded with rounded ends.
Shipping the long ones, as you can imagine, can be difficult. However, they provide the best outcome in the end, having the full length be unobstructed without splice joints. Piecing the ballet barres together would be a much more economical and easier way to ship, but they never did that in the old days and that’s why we’re continuing the solid one piece tradition up to 16 feet long.
Many studios are longer than that so we have a splice joint that holds them together. Even though you can see the joint, it doesn’t affect the full surface usage. The way we mount these beautiful pieces of wood at one point from underneath is not the easiest way to do it, but for the rest of the life of that barre the user appreciates it, since it also adds to the unobstructed presentation of the barre.
We have standard links which match up to most wall studs and also for our freestanding units. However, we can customize any of these beautiful pieces of wood to add brackets and make it a specific length to fit your situation. This is virtually how it’s been done since 1952 when Alva himself invented the first Height Adjusting Ballet Barre Wall Bracket.
You can imagine that you couldn’t go to Zodys or Newberrys and buy a ballet barre back in the day. So everyone was forced to make their own ballet barres and their own brackets. On our website, we have vintage pictures of ballet barres that are made mostly out of wood and some handrail brackets, etc.
Certainly the way ballet barres are made has evolved, but the Alvas program hit a home run right off the bat in 1952. There’s been very little change from the way Alva made them then compared to the way we make them now. Even ballet has changed, but the spirit and the Alvas brackets have not.
(If you would like a more detailed explanation from Matt please contact us.)
Crafting exceptional ballet barres with the same time-honored techniques and attention to detail that have been used since 1592
