The long awaited pull-up bar post

Well I've been awaiting it, even if no-one else has.

Yesterday I "completed" my pull-up bars.
"Completed" because although they need some more work, they can be used for actual pullups, as established by me.
In the process I also established that:

1. My max. pull-ups is now about 4.
2. I've forgotten how to kip properly.
   I still can sort of, but I had them at one point where I was only giving a very minimal pull to get up to the bar on a playground swing structure
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   and chest-to bar seemed possible on a proper bar. Chest-to-bar is a distant goal again now.
3. I can't do ball-ups (I can't figure out how to link to Facebook posts directly, so just believe me that it's there somewhere)  even remotely.

The finished bars are an adaptation of a design posted here http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=13753. They had to be:

• Free-stranding
• Able to be disassembled so that they could be moved if we moved.
• Tall enough that I could kip on them without touching the ground and ideally able to accommodate rings when I want to try muscle-ups.

This is them in almost their final incarnation.

From Pull-up_bar_2010

I discovered that the amount of flex in the uprights was enough to allow the diagonal braces to slide out from under the blocks pinning the in place, so I added some additional bracing that turned out to have an unexpected function

From Pull-up_bar_2010

when I get tired I can put my feet on these (currently) unpainted braces and rest for a bit.

Along the way I tried and rejected an alternate bracing system that would definitely have been better if I had the tools and technical ability to pull it off. I'm afraid that the process of manufacture was one of leaning just how to pull off the designs I wanted with the tools I had available which didn't let me work the precision I needed. Normally the angled braces would be bolted through the uprights and base plates at an angle with very long galvanised bolts and I found that despite importing a drill guide from the states I still couldn't drill straight enough holes for that length of bolt, so the system of pinning the braces under the blocks was used.

The timber I bought initially came from a hardware store that kept it in a shed. I rejected places that stored it outside because all of the timber was cracked and warped. The 4x4's I bought from there have warped horribly and I threw one of the uprights out because it was twisting so badly. I replaced it with a 4x4 bought from a local timber merchant too small to have undercover storage so I could see from the start whether it was going to warp once it weathered. That one's holding up well. Slightly twisted and starting to crack a little, but nothing like that first one.

The bar is pipe, 36mm OD. It's held from rotating by a bolt at each end through the 4x2 sitting on the outside of the uprights. Those also stop the pipe from pulling out as the structure rocks.

The whole thing works well. The bar is a little too high. I set it up to have clearance if I put a deck over the base plates as I suspect I will at some point. I should have just drilled two sets of holes through the uprights, but I had had so little success drilling straight holes with a spade bit I was relieved to have those two come out right. I'd gotten the hang of using the drill guide by then so I probably could have made it.

There is a lot of lateral movement. The metal fastenings are not going to let it go any place, but I will certainly add a top brace in the future. I didn't for a start because I wanted to leave room above the bar for bar muscle-ups and flips over the bar, but I'd rather have the structure solid. It will last longer that way.

The whole thing rocks back and forth as one unit if I swing wildly in my kip. As in the base plates lift of the ground like it's going to tip. It won't, it's too heavy to allow that. Largely that's inefficient kipping technique on my part. Properly done a kip is an oscillation about a vertical line through the bar, I've just forgotten how from lack of practise.

So I finally have a real pull-up bar.

And I must thank my lovely assistant at the painting stage.

From Pull-up_bar_2010

Child labour again. Thanks shorty fella.