The Power Rack: One Year Later

I thought it would be fun to post a one year update. Here's the rack, still in use, still sturdy:

You can see there's a bar for doing chins; the position is a bit different than it looked on the power rack plans. The easiest solution ended up being to fasten the bar to the top of the posts.

The bar is the same as the safety bars, a 36" length of steel plumbers' pipe. It has a 7/8" interior diameter and a 1 1/8" exterior. It's strong enough to support my 240-pound neighbor doing chins.

We fastened the bar to the top of the posts by drilling a hole through each end and then nailing it in place.

We put a wood screw into each post on the side for an easy place to hang the bar clips. There's also another hook on the front for hanging stuff on as well.

At the front, the two posts started to move inward at the bottom a few inches. We resolved this by placing a loose board between them. It's a 1" x 6", and, as I mentioned, just sits there. A more elegant solution would be to get a 1" x 4" and actually fasten it in place.

One of the 4 x 4s started to warp.

It warped within a couple of months of construction. Not sure how to prevent it. It never got any worse than you see here and doesn't affect the functionality of the rack, so we left it. I imagine if it kept going and got too bad, we'd have to replace the post. Thank goodness that didn't happen!