Pad Modding

One way to mod your pads is to cover it with hardwood floor covering. It'll definitely help your pads last longer and allow you to slide on the pads much like at the arcades. First, you'll need to get some materials. I'd say get a 3rd party mat. I modded my 3rd party mat and it works fine. I've used it for over half a year now and had no problems at all. You'll also need a wooden board that is at least 36x33. Try to get one that is of decent density so that when you're stepping on it, it doesn't just snap in half(so probably you'll need to get something at least half an inch tall). You'll also need some packaging tape(preferably the clear kind), a staple gun, and about 6 feet of hardwood floor covering per pad. You can get all this stuff at Home Depot. I'd say each particle board is about 5-10 dollars, packaging tape is 5 dollars, try to borrow someone's staple gun if you can cause it'd be stupid to buy a staple gun just to mod your pad, and the hardwood floor covering which will run you about 10 bucks. So total, this will cost about 20-25 dollars to mod each pad. And considering it helps your game play and increases the life of your pad, I'd say this is a bargain. Anyways, here are the instructions on how to mod your pad:

Materials

Hardwood floor covering

1. Lay your wooden board down and place the dance mat on top of your board.
2. Use your packaging tape and tape along the edges of the mat so that half the tape is covering the mat and the other half of the tape is along the wooden board. (make sure you pull your pad out flat so that it's not all puffy in the middle after you tape it down) Do it around all four edges of the mat.
3. Take the hardwood floor covering and lay it over the top of your mat with some of the covering extending past the width of the mat.
4. Now take your staple gun and staple down the hardwood floor covering to the side of the wooden board. Now cut the hardwood floor covering so that it is long enough to hang over the other side. Now staple the other side down with your staple gun. (NOTE: DO NOT STAPLE THROUGH THE PAD. STAPLE THE COVERING DOWN TO THE WOOD). The staples should be about 2 inches apart.


Stapling the covering


Staples

5. If you're getting the hardwood floor covering at Home Depot, it's not going to be wide enough to cover the entire mat. What you need to do is use another piece of hardwood floor covering and overlap a small section of the already stapled down covering and repeat steps 3 and 4. Then cut the excess covering off the bottom edge and staple the covering down on the bottom side of the wood.
6. Now take your packaging tape and tape over the section of the hardwood floor covering that overlaps on the other piece. Just use one piece of tape and tape from one side to the other. This will keep your feet from getting caught on the lip where the two pieces overlap.

And you have now completed modding your pad. You can now slide and not worry about messing up your pad. Have fun! =)