Photo credit to Ania Klara
I am interested in all kinds of home exercise equipment, partly because of a generally antisocial approach to physical training and partly because of the limited financial resources of my early adult life. As an athlete working largely in isolation in home gyms of various kinds, I have some useful ideas about saving a buck to build a home gym.
Stall bars are a common gymnastics tool for strength training and flexibility. They are also expensive. Rogue Fitness $760, DCS $600+shipping, VSB $410, and plenty of other (mostly flimsier) options are out there. Doing it yourself is much cheaper and the product is, in my opinion, superior.
I built these from red oak 1x3s and 1.5" dowels. There is a 1/4" lag screw into each end of each dowel and a #8 machine screw perpendicular to each dowel (to prevent them from rotating). Before assembly, the sides and dowels were stained and varnished separately using Red oak Minwax stain and polyurethane varnish.
The tools necessary to build these are small and inexpensive. I used only a corded drill ($100), a circular saw ($100), and a router ($140). I also bought and returned a large number of c-clamps for the lamination step. It is obviously faster, more fun, and more precise to use fancier, pricier equipment. The miters are tighter if you cut them on a mitersaw instead of with a circular saw. The holes are straighter with a drill press instead of a hand drill. However, these were built with just those three tools, meaning the cost of all the tools and the materials is less than the cost of buying stall bars from Rogue Fitness or Gym Supply.
Always keep in mind that an attentive circular saw operator will always be more precise than a butcher at a miter saw.
From my accounting records:
| 2016-06-21 | TXID 260 - Houston Hardwoods - STALLBARS | $175.11 |
|---|---|---|
| 2016-06-22 | TXID 262 - Lowes - STALLBARS | $80.00 |
| 2016-06-26 | TXID 340 - amazon - router bit - STALLBARS | $33.14 |
| 2016-07-13 | TXID 278 - Lowes - return STALLBARS | -$68.22 |
| 2016-07-13 | TXID 279 - Lowes - return STALLBARS | -$12.31 |
| 2016-07-13 | TXID 281 - Lowes - STALLBARS bolts | $51.73 |
| 2016-07-14 | TXID 282 - Lowes - 2x4 and 2x10 for STALLBARS | $10.03 |
| Total | $269.48 | |
Download dxf file here.
If I were to do it again, I would move the top bar back a little bit.
