Watch This Guy Demonstrate How to Build Your Own Half Rack Out of Lumber

Philip Ellis

July 11, 2020 5:09 PM

A lot of workout equipment has been in short supply over the last few months, due to the surge in people buying gear for their home workouts during lockdown. This scarcity, though, has led to some real ingenuity, like when Zachary Skidmore built his own home gym out of wood so he could get "lumberjacked" in quarantine.

This Guy Built His Own Half Rack Out of Lumber

Then there's DIY Duke, the YouTuber who makes tutorial videos on how to make inexpensive versions of gym equipment at home. In one of his recent posts, he demonstrated how easy it is to mold your own plate weights out of concrete . Of course, there's no use in having weights without a rack but he's got a hack for that too.

Duke designs the rack to be multipurpose, suitable for bench press and squats, as well as for pullups it's also portable, so it can be moved and stored away if you don't have a dedicated home gym space or are training outside.

He starts out by cutting lumber to construct the two halves of the frame, including support beams at a 45-degree angle which will help keep the rack stable when it's loaded with weight. Then he drills the holes to place the metal pipe for the pullup bar, which may differ for each person depending on their height. "Personalise that for yourselves," he advises, "then it will be specifically built for you and your family."

He then assembles the base, placing the lumber in an "I-beam" and attaching them using 1 1/2 inch screws and metal plates. He uses the same plates to assemble the upright beam and support beams, bending them to the right angle. "That's going to make it very structurally strong," he says. "Over time the lag-bolts might be loosening, the lumber dries out, it might start to separate... with [plates] you can use as many as you want, and it's going to really make that thing strong."

Next, Duke attaches the racking system, and then demonstrates how the entire unit can be staked to the ground if you want to keep it in one place.

Philip Ellis