Hey Yas Forums, how you holdin' up? I don't really come here anymore due to the board being shit and all, but I figured I'd post my project since I haven't seen any others like it and people are always making shitty concrete bucket plates.
In non end-times this just wouldn't be worth it, better off finding used stuff for cheap etc etc yada yada
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But these ARE the end-times! LOOK AT THIS SHIT! And I couldnt buy new equipment, even if I could afford it, because its all SOLD OUT! So anyways, what you gonna do about it? Pistol squats and gymnastic rings for the next few months? Been there done that, cant stand em. Nope, time to make my own shit!
I started with plates. Concrete, of course. You've all seen the bucket plates, but what if you want them to be regulation 450 mm diameter? Now, I went through the hassle of calculating aproximate weight per volume of quikrete ready mix, and then calculating the height of a cylinder with a hole for that given volume. That's probably overkill and you could just trim off your excess mold like everybody else.
I wanted to make sure that I had something extruding into the concrete to hold in the pvc, so used a larger piece trimmed from a coupler
Also, I don't want to always have to put a soft mat underneath when deadlifting, and fuck up the height of the bar. Why not build the bumper into the plate? I had some old horse stall mats I cut strips off. Pre drilled holes and inserted screws to hold them to the concrete. Important to pre drill holes so the screw head doesn't sit flush with the outside (it would crack the concrete if it made contact with the ground).
You should meet up with him and waste his time haggling for awhile before leaving and not buying it.
That would waste his time too
Made a circle of screws on some plywood to hold the rubber in a 450 mm circular shape, and act as a mold. Cut my wire mesh (old chicken wire) and tied the rebar for reinforcement. This greatly improves the strength of concrete.
The $112 USD adjustable iron dumbells I bought last year are selling for over $650 preowned on Ebay right now.
It's a good idea to have the mold small enough, and seperate, so you can shake/vibrate it while you fill. Don't want any of them there air pockets
Make him load it all up offering to buy what's left then make him meet you 30mins away as well. Then haggle and say you misunderstood the listing prices
You should have used galvanized pipe slightly larger than your bar so it slides on easy. Keep the larger pipe in the plate for durability
I should probably mention I had to glue the rubber to the plywood because it was riding up as I vibrated the mold (just hitting it with a hammer)
I feel your pain brother. I had a pair I loaned a friend months ago, and I could sell them for an obscene amount now, but dont have the heart to deprive said friend of their only fitness routine while they're stuck inside
I just made four to start with, not being sure how they would turn out. I based my calculations off a target weight of 45 pounds. Spoiler: they ended up at 48.
I let them cure for 4 days, keeping them wet so as to stop too much water evaporating before hydration was complete. I'm not an expert but basically dont let your concrete dry out too quickly, stupid. Nice thing about this system is it's really easy getting the hardened plates off, just back out your mold screws and tap the plywood off.
The pvc was all stuff I had laying around, but these 2" center pieces are the perfect internal diameter to slide over a 50mm olympic bar collar. Of course, that's assuming you HAVE an olympic bar, which I didn't. That's next.
Now to build a barbell. I didnt take as many pics from here on out, but you should be able to get the idea. I got my local fabricator to sell me a 7 foot long 1 1/8" steel round bar, that's 28.5 mm perfect generalist bar. I'm not really too concerned about alloy because
a)I don't lift that heavy
b) by the time I eventually bend this thing beyond useability I will have already upgraded to a post-covid bar, once people start getting rid of all the equipment they panic bought over the crisis.
BTW Is anybody reading this thread? Should I post the rest?
I enjoyed seeing this, even if I probably won't do it. Thanks user
Glad to hear it user
Alright so at first I was thinking I would have to do fixed collars, but then I found this guy's article: barbell-logic.com
Where he makes a york split sleeve style collar out of PVC for a length of metal pipe. Pic related. Pretty cool.
Unfortunately my bar is thicker, so I couldnt use the same combination of nesting PVCs and still end up with a nice spin. After a day of poking through old pipes and irrigation lines, I found a solution, using "bushings" from a thinner walled plastic pipe, that was just a hair thinner than PVC. Pic related is my attempt. I can't weld, but the interior fixed section of the collar fit tight enough that it holds in place with friction, and the outer section I used a sheet metal screw. And the outer diameter is a perfect 50 mm, just like a real bar!
Test fitting the plates on the bar, and sure enough it's a perfect fit. They slide on and off without catching at all, but theres virtually no play between the plates and the bar. I used another small ring of PVC with a slit as a makeshift spring clip collar
Are you going to make some smaller plates as well?
The best part. Honestly I still can't get over how cool this is. SPIN! Alright, its not "great" spin, but for a bar that cost $30 to make, I'm pretty happy. I ended up putting some bicycle chain lube between the moving sections, there may be a better option but that's what I had on hand
This is cool bruh
For sure. I was going to do that this weekend, but I ended up building squat stands instead. Smaller plates will be easier because they can be any diameter, and I'll just use buckets to mold since they dont need a bumper.
Here was my first go at seeing how everything felt. Honestly pretty good, the bar that is. I haven't touched a barbell in a month and a half and lost a bunch of weight, so back to DYEL it is. The thickness of the bar is perfect though, and I actually like the feel and look of bare steel, dont miss a knurling at all so far.
These saw horses won't do at all, though. Time for squat stands!
awesome thread so far op
So squat racks etc have actually been done to death, and there's a million different how-to's out there already. I found the best one was the buffdudes youtube video on the DIY power rack.
I took that idea, and adapted it into seperate squat stands, with a fixed safety. A full cage would be way nicer, but I need the ability to move it around easily, and 7-8 ft cage is not very mobile.
Pardon the state of the workshop, its not my mess. I'm not a carpenter or anything, and this was my first project that I tried to build "properly", i.e. pre-drilling holes, counter sinking and all that. I did use wood glue as well, although I'm not sure it's that effective for butt joints, which all these are. Whatever, it was cheap. I did have some leftover GRK screws that I scrounged up, combined with some regular construction screws.
Dunno why that one image rotated. This was my first test. As anybody who knows what they're doing can see, it wasn't very strong. I went back after nearly snapping my shit and added in bracing where indicated in red.
And here we have the current product, after two weekends. Moveable j hooks, and the safeties I built for my height when benching. Added a coat of paint that I had laying around, and some black duct tape on the plates, plus spray paint stenciled numbers. I ended up running out of tape and switching to blue, but it works. I might buy more so I can tape up the other pair.
Next: more weights in smaller increments, and then a bench.
Fucking rotation
I hope you learned your lesson "lmao y do I need a home gym lmao" fag.
I really want to see the bench desu.
Just commenting to let you know people are actually interested in this.
This is honestly the best DIY gym I've ever seen