Knock-Down Tennis-Court Backstop: Guyed Yellow-Pine Towers on the Ground and Hooked-Down Netting (Boy Mechanic, 1919)

"Instead of setting the supports in the ground, they are set on the ground, and guyed by a system of wire braces."

Build two towers about 14 ft high from sound 4 by 4 in and 2 by 4 in yellow-pine timber, to stand 50 ft apart. Make brick foundations, anchored into the ground, for them to stand on, and sink anchors in the ground beyond each end.

Fasten end braces of heavy wire (No. 9) to the top of each tower and guy them to the sunken anchors; they carry the weight of the netting and let a ladder lean safely on the guyed end of a tower.

Run the supporting wires (No. 20 gauge, as printed) between the towers on crossarms of 1 by 1 in wood, 2 ft long, which stop side motion at the top; wire them to the netting and draw them up so it is fairly taut. Add more supporting wires with vertical leaders to the netting to draw its whole length taut. Let the netting run under the towers, held there by wires, nearly to the end guys.

Hold the lower edge of the netting down with hooks pinned to the ground by tent stakes, so it can be unhooked to mow. Tie a white flag to each guy wire about 6 ft from the ground so players see it.

From "A Knock-Down Tennis-Court Backstop" by Edward R. Smith, in **The Boy Mechanic, Book 3**, Popular Mechanics, 1919 (Project Gutenberg 71856; checked on the archive.org scan boymechanic0003unse, p. 189). He gives no netting height or mesh, no tower framing details and no anchor type, and No. 20 gauge for the supporting cables is as printed. The tools and metric figures are ours.