Home Gym - Work in Progress

[slashragnarok]

Alright, this has been long overdue. Ages ago I interacted with all you folks to get me started on building my home gym and after stumbling through some minor hurdles and the occasional challenge that life threw at me, I present to you a few glimpses of my work in progress.

Firstly, the fabricators here are decent (I said decent...) workmen but seriously lack confidence. So I had to stand there all day and tell them what next to do. Second, please excuse the dust. This apartment of mine where the gym is being setup is hardly used. And I'm too lazy to clean the dust before shooting the pics.

The power rack. I don't understand why photobucket is rotating this thing. The paint has chipped off in places. Entirely my fault. The dust makes it look worse.

[URL=http://s42.photobucket.com/user/slashragnarok/media/DSC_0632_zpsegiea0ap.jpg.html]

Made from 3.5mm thick steel 72mm x 72mm. Just short of 3x3 and just short of 7 gauge as well.



Sabre style safeties.



Hole drilled where the safeties emerge at the other end...



... for this cotter pin to secure it.



Pretty sturdy in my opinion.



Half inch hardware ftw..



The J Hook in all it's (former) glory.



Contd....

[slashragnarok]

Another angle



How the back cross member attaches to the uprights.


How the front cross member cum chin up bar attaches the the front uprights.



A bench (or its skeleton) thrown in for "free"



Another angle. I basically need to get a 4' x 1' plywood upholstered and bolted through the holes seen on the "wings".



So that's basically it for now. All for INR 18500, which is about $300 as per the latest conversion rates. Feedback would be appreciated. Thanks all again for helping me build this. Thanks to Mech6 for teaching and inspiring me through his works and for the tip on bending the J hooks (you probably don't even recall it). Also even though I was discouraged to build an Oly bar, I'm still pretty upbeat about it. I'm this close to building it. I've been in touch with a few heat treaters, who are confident they can pull this off. The design is 99.99% ready. Snap ring design. Stainless steel sleeves The greatest challenge now is figuring out how to knurl a 210000 psi bar. I think the power rack turned out great. No wobble even when I shake it vigorously (maybe I'm not strong enough). The black mat yet to be laid can be seen behind the rack.

Thanks all.

[ProtienandIron]

That is an awesome rack for $300. That wouldnt even buy you the materials over here. It might have seemed a bind at the time, but you were very lucky to be able to 'project manage' it as you will have gotten everything just how you want it. You got to take care of the smaller touches that only a lifter would notice that can get missed by a fab on design, like rounding off the ends of the safeties so they slide through easier.

Great job, can't wait to see the bar. Repped.

[cmarti063]

Nicely done! I remember some of your threads, always good to see follow-up. The rack looks fantastic, your bench will be solid, too.

Will be interesting to see if you can get a rotating sleeve barbell pulled off. You've got the drive, so best of luck.

[CliveWarren]

This is really good. Did you say you were in Bangladesh? Any chance you can slide an oily rag through the tubes?

[slashragnarok]

Nicely done! I remember some of your threads, always good to see follow-up. The rack looks fantastic, your bench will be solid, too.

Will be interesting to see if you can get a rotating sleeve barbell pulled off. You've got the drive, so best of luck.

Actually, believe it or not, the rotating part of the barbell is pretty easy to make, now that I understand how a barbell's innards work. The hard part is to select the right steel, heat treat it properly, get it straightened and finally knurl the hardened steel. In fact the right steel is pretty straightforward. Just use 4140 or 4340, both of which are by the way pretty cheap in my country. With due respect to American steel, I would like to say here that I work for people who are primarily metallurgists and I can safely say Indian steel is no worse than American steel. Yes the rumor about Chinese steel being crap is somewhat true. Even the Chinese buy steel from us. That may be attributed to lack of QC.

Knurling is a bitch. No machinist wants to knurl a 210000 psi steel. Let's see how it turns out. I'm also getting my own calibrated plates made from steel plate. Nothing fancy.

Will keep everyone posted with pics. Inner arrangement of barbell coming up in a while...

[slashragnarok]

This is really good. Did you say you were in Bangladesh? Any chance you can slide an oily rag through the tubes?

Which tubes?

[CliveWarren]

The uprights. You can see surface rust on the inside of the steel tubing. It's not serious, but a little unsightly.

[slashragnarok]

Okay. The bar design. First pic shows the cut away of the sleeve. The colors are for indicative purpose only. The bar and the flanged sleeve can be seen here. The bar rotates on the two bronze bushings as shown.



Down to more detail. The bar retention mechanism is seen clearly. The red thing in the groove on the bar is the snap ring. It is flanked by two spacers/thrust washers on either side. This whole assembly is retained by the snap ring to its left. Further out is the end cap and its own retaining ring. There may be two holes punched in the end cap to facilitate oiling.



The other end of the sleeve. Here is the other bronze bushing and the flange. I opted for a machined flange ala Rogue 2.0. This flange will probably be shrunk fit. Also worth mentioning here is that the sleeve and flange shall be made of stainless steel.



At this point all this is pure speculation. I have shown the blueprint with actual dimensions and tolerances to a machinist. He says he can do it. The heat treater says he can pull off the shaft. I don't know whether this will work but there is only one way to find out.

Thanks

[slashragnarok]

The uprights. You can see surface rust on the inside of the steel tubing. It's not serious, but a little unsightly.

That may be difficult. Both ends of the tube have been closed by welded plates. To answer your original question, I'm in India.

[-aesop-]

This is pretty cool. Making your own bar and calibrated weight plates. Best of luck to you! Have you considered getting fancy and just making your weight bar out of stainless steel? Kind of like Ivanko's top end bars

[slashragnarok]

This is pretty cool. Making your own bar and calibrated weight plates. Best of luck to you! Have you considered getting fancy and just making your weight bar out of stainless steel? Kind of like Ivanko's top end bars

I did in fact. But the stainless steel grade I selected isn't readily available here where I live and I can't find a suitable substitute.

[slashragnarok]

Alright guys. Here it is. The final pieces of my home gym jigsaw. It was hard work sourcing everything, putting everything together, burning the midnight oil perfecting the designs and so on. But it's here. I made my own bar and calibrated plates (got the bar made actually with my designs). I had to explain everything to the metal workshop who have absolutely no experience making anything remotely related to weight training equipment. I couldn't get a decent picture as the place I setup my home gym at is way too small. So without further adieu, here they are:

The bar. I couldn't click a picture to show the whole bar and still be clear enough.





Knurling closeup. To be honest I'm not very happy with how the knurling turned out but it works. I got both the Oly and Powerlifting O rings made. The smooth part in the middle is quite wide, exactly the same as on the Matt Chan bar.




This is where the bar meets the sleeve. What was done here is that the bar was turned down from 33 mm to 28 mm. The bar kinda flares out where it meets the sleeve. This acts as a barrier to stop the sleeve from sliding further in and also stops the grease from sliding down on to the bar. Keep in mind that there is no real bushing in the sleeve. As I turned down the bar from 33mm to 28mm, I created a natural bushing by keeping the bar diameter a bit more after it enters the sleeve. So we have hardened steel (the bar) rolling on softer steel (the inside of the sleeve). Everything is Chrome plated.



The ends are end cap and pin style. But I added a couple of my own designs into it. Firstly the pit seen on the end of the bar is not for a bolt. It was created to make a center for the lathe to turn down the bar stock. The bar end itself is threaded and the end cap screw on to it. Additionally, there is the traditional hole for the pin to go into, which in this case is a threaded hole for a hex head bolt, screwed all the way to the other end. You might think this is useless but first time bar maker taking no chances. This bar was tested and it came out to have a 213900 psi (approximately) tensile strength. It was straightened after heat treatment (there was minimal warping post heat treatment). The bar is dead straight from a visual point of view.

[slashragnarok]

Bonus pics of calibrated plates (within 20 grams) and collar (weighing exactly 2.5 kg). Calibrated plates are not my design. But it's not rocket science. Cast iron and turned down to calibrate.




5kg. you can see the 2.5 kg plate (red) at the other end.


1.25kg (No painted letters )



Collars



That's it for now. Thanks to everyone here. I got a power rack, bench and now a bar and plates made. Some of you guys were very helpful. I got a lot of encouragement. But the ones who motivated me the most were the ones who thought I couldn't do it. Thanks again. *End of speech

[Mech6]

Alright guys. Here it is. The final pieces of my home gym jigsaw. It was hard work sourcing everything, putting everything together, burning the midnight oil perfecting the designs and so on. But it's here. I made my own bar and calibrated plates

Impressed.

[keyboardworkout]

You made the calibrated plates?

Please describe the process. Lathe turned?

[Domicron]

You made the calibrated plates?

Please describe the process. Lathe turned?

hammer and chisel??

just kidding, that's awesome. i wish i could have a custom barbell...

[Mech6]

You made the calibrated plates?

Please describe the process. Lathe turned?

He wrote cast and then turned down to calibrate.

[keyboardworkout]

He wrote cast and then turned down to calibrate.

Missed that.

What did you use for a casting Slash?

I can't imagine how much work that would have to be: setup, turn, remove, weigh, setup, turn, remove, weigh..........

[slashragnarok]

Thanks folks.

@keyboardworkout - Like I said, plates are not my design. But I'll ask the guy who made them and report back.

[dragon360]

Very impressive slash. Some nice work.

[slashragnarok]

Very impressive slash. Some nice work.

Thanks. One of these days I'm gonna take apart one sleeve of the bar to show how the internal parts were machined. I forgot to mention that I used 6150 spring steel for the bar and mild steel for the sleeves. Both are chrome plated. However I find that the sleeve collar interface has developed a bit of rust after heating the collar for compression fitting.

Also I wonder what you guys would recommend I use on the J hooks for protection. I have a really nagging OCD kick in every time I slam the bar into the uprights. Again sourcing materials is a real PITA for me here in India.

[BenchPress3000]

nice work!