Horizontal Pull Bar

I've been thinking about building things lately and decided to start off with a simple project.  I wanted to make a pull-up bar but for now I am starting off with a smaller bar for doing horizontal pulls.  To make a design I had a couple ideas in mind in which I would use galvanize pipe so that it would be strong enough to hold up and I would be able to take it apart since I move a lot being in the military.  The first design I thought of used a bar with two supports coming off at 45 degree angles, Figure 1.  The thoughts on this design were for it to be sturdier and use less pieces but in my mind it would take up more space.

My second thought for a design would use a couple more pieces but risk not being as sturdy, Figure 2.  It feels like it would take up less space than the first design because it would be easier to walk past without accidently tripping yourself and I didn't know if a T piece that branches off at 45 degree angles existed, so I decided to go with the second idea.

  

I am going to start by saying that this can be constructed much cheaper than I spent making mine, but I was able to buy all my materials at one place.  You could scrounge around for materials to make this, or use a mix between wood and steel, or make it in the ground so that you do not need the support pieces at the bottom.  I went to Lowes and bought threaded pipe and fittings that I could just put together.  If you have the ability you could cut and thread your own pipe and just buy the fittings and that would save about $70, since I don't have access to pipe threading equipment here that option wasn't available to me. 

 

Here are the pieces that I bought, all 1 inch galvanize.  1x 48 inch pipe, 2x, 30 inch pipe, 4x 18 inch pipe, 2x T fittings, 2x 45 degree elbows, and 4x caps.  I bought the set of pliers because it was a $10 set and I didn't want to spend $30 on a pipe wrench for this.  I knew I had at least 1 pipe wrench at home even it if was 40 years old, it worked, but 2 pipe wrenches works best for putting the pipe together.  In this case since you don't need the best seal on the pipes pliers will work fine as long as the jaws are big enough to clamp around the fittings.  The pieces shown here ended up costing me $112 from Lowes after the 10% Military discount, so as I said,  you can easily make this for much less if you find materials elsewhere.

I started by scraping off all the stickers on the pipe and washing them with soapy water.  I made sure that they were dried well because galvanize rusts really easily and should normally be cleaned with oil.  This step of cleaning took the longest and could have been done in much better ways.  The pipe could have been cleaned with acid or some other cleaner or it could have been cleaned, sanded, and painted.  Being as this is made to be taken apart I can always go back and paint it or clean it better.

After each pipe was cleaned I put the 2x elbows on the 48 inch piece of pipe.  I didn't have to worry about aligning the elbows right away because I immediately put the 30 inch pieces into each elbow.  Once the 30 inch pieces were on I was able to line the elbows easier and tighten the elbows onto the 48 inch piece using leverage.

I put a cap on each of the 18 inch pieces and connected these pieces with the T.  These fittings all needed to be tightened using a pipe wrench and pliers as you can only turn them so far by hand.  After putting the 2 support pieces together I was able to put the T onto the other end of the 30 inch pipe and just spin it on.  The leverage made it really easy to tighten these fittings as much as I needed.  After making sure everything was aligned it looked like this.

After everything was assembled and sturdy I added grip tape to the 48 inch bar.  I had the tape laying around for years, but athletic tape only costs $2-$3 at Wal-Mart.

The overall piece ended up being much bigger than I expected but was also much sturdier than I hoped for.  This could be made with smaller pieces if you want but I have longer arms and this ended up being the perfect size for me.  In the end I have a bar for horizontal pulls that look like this.

Now for my next project I am planning to make a kitty condo for our cat Nelly.  I'll put a little more thought into the design phase than I did for this but it should be fun.