Just thought I would share this little project I did for my garage. Was looking at the cost of buying a Power rack and, though you can get cheap ones they are not great quality, and after a bit of research online, I decided to build my own. It meant I could make it to whatever size I wanted and do any customising I wanted.
Incase you don't know what a Power Rack is, its basically a "cage/box" type thing where you can do multiple types of weight exercises safely. The main ones being the squat with a barbell. You have an adjustable hook type thing to adjust height where barbell sits depending on exercise and you have adjustable safety bars which are there for the weight to land on if you run into trouble!
When coming up with idea was trying to think of an easy way to do these adjustable rack hooks. I ended up going with just basic old tube clamp and steel pipe, which is pretty strong!
I used 4"x3" timber for 95% of the build, using some 3"x1" for some corner angle supports. Originally wanted 4x4, but these were harder to get in long lengths and I could buy long lengths of 4x3 which turned out a little cheaper. I used 33mm galvanised steel pipe for safety bars, pull up bar and rack pins along with some tube clamp flanges.
Started off drilling all the holes for each of the 4 posts. This took time! I made the holes 36mm, which allowed for imperfect straight holes being drilled as I have no drill press. Only had to tweak a few of the holes after to get them to line up.
Got all my lengths cut and all my angle strengthening support pieces cut aswell. Also, I used Simpson 90' corner brackets to put it all together, and got good strong ones. Even without the angled supports it was already pretty stable.
This is one of the back top corners. Really solid as you can see.
Front top corner a little different to accomodate the pull up bar.
Here is overview of it. Apologies, shots took at night and garage light entering the picture!
For the safety bars I just put a load of PVC tape on the end to prevent it going all through, and also makes it like a little handle.
I also then added weight holders at the bottom, for 2 reasons. Mainly so I can keep my weights neat and in a small footprint, and also for more stability and weight the rack down. I am a big lad 6'3" and the rack doesn't budge if I am doing pull ups.
All in all was good fun. I probably ended up spending around £160 on this. Best bit is I am not finished. I am going to paint it and then I am going to add some numbers to all the holes so its easy to see which hole to go into etc. Also later on I am going to add a pulley bar at some point so I can do more exercises. Was going to build my own bench, but a friend is giving me one which is coming soon.
Really happy, and was good fun. Hope you like !
Incase you don't know what a Power Rack is, its basically a "cage/box" type thing where you can do multiple types of weight exercises safely. The main ones being the squat with a barbell. You have an adjustable hook type thing to adjust height where barbell sits depending on exercise and you have adjustable safety bars which are there for the weight to land on if you run into trouble!
When coming up with idea was trying to think of an easy way to do these adjustable rack hooks. I ended up going with just basic old tube clamp and steel pipe, which is pretty strong!
I used 4"x3" timber for 95% of the build, using some 3"x1" for some corner angle supports. Originally wanted 4x4, but these were harder to get in long lengths and I could buy long lengths of 4x3 which turned out a little cheaper. I used 33mm galvanised steel pipe for safety bars, pull up bar and rack pins along with some tube clamp flanges.
Started off drilling all the holes for each of the 4 posts. This took time! I made the holes 36mm, which allowed for imperfect straight holes being drilled as I have no drill press. Only had to tweak a few of the holes after to get them to line up.
Got all my lengths cut and all my angle strengthening support pieces cut aswell. Also, I used Simpson 90' corner brackets to put it all together, and got good strong ones. Even without the angled supports it was already pretty stable.
This is one of the back top corners. Really solid as you can see.
Front top corner a little different to accomodate the pull up bar.
Here is overview of it. Apologies, shots took at night and garage light entering the picture!
For the safety bars I just put a load of PVC tape on the end to prevent it going all through, and also makes it like a little handle.
I also then added weight holders at the bottom, for 2 reasons. Mainly so I can keep my weights neat and in a small footprint, and also for more stability and weight the rack down. I am a big lad 6'3" and the rack doesn't budge if I am doing pull ups.
All in all was good fun. I probably ended up spending around £160 on this. Best bit is I am not finished. I am going to paint it and then I am going to add some numbers to all the holes so its easy to see which hole to go into etc. Also later on I am going to add a pulley bar at some point so I can do more exercises. Was going to build my own bench, but a friend is giving me one which is coming soon.
Really happy, and was good fun. Hope you like !
