The Wall-mounted Barbell rack

 

A friend of a friend had a few projects they needed done around the house, and they had heard I was able to do some handyman type work, and possibly building things. I agreed to do the work for them, depending on what they needed. They have a home gym in their basement, with free-weights, barbells, exercise balls and a squat rack. The issue for them is that they have a number of barbells on a rack that takes up a lot of space in their room. It is approx 3' x 3' and this brings the barbells far out into their work-out area. It's a pain to navigate around it, and a bit of a hazard, since they catch themselves on the bars often. 

Previous barbell rack

This existing rack is probably meant for a larger space, possibly a commercial gym space. To make full use of it, you would need to be able to access both sides, which is obviously not possible in a home gym space.

I came up with a plan that would allow for the barbells to be stored on a wall-mounted rack, secured to the wall studs. Over the years, I had become pretty comfortable with designing things in an application called Sketchup. It is a 3d modelling software that has a fully functioning free version. I've used it for designing spaces at my office, and for designing my woodworking projects. With this application, I was able to build a wall with the same dimensions as the wall at my clients home. I downloaded some barbells from the Sketchup website so that I could get an idea of how they would need to be held, and how large a structure would be needed. There are barbell racks for sale (shown below) that would be much simpler to install, but my client had special requirements that made them unsuitable. They have a curl bar which is shorter that the average bar, and a large hex bar that is much larger than average barbells.

Example rack from online venders that could be easy to install, but they do not suit my clients' needs.

Due to the need to accommodate the odd bars, a whole new design would be needed that could handle everything, and still protect the walls. There would need to be holders that were closer for the curl bar, and some that were positioned differently for the big hex bar. I also wanted hooks that would not scratch the barbells. I found some that were expensive, but were awesome. They are completely wrapped in rubber and because they were individual pieces, they could be positioned anywhere I wanted.

The chosen hooks. Expensive, but worth it.

With the hooks chosen and the requirements understood, I was able to design everything to scale and present it to my clients for their opinion. This is what was presented.

Proposed wall-mounted barbell rack design made in Sketchup

Once the client was happy with the design, they paid their deposit and I ordered the hooks and bought the lumber.

For the wood, my plan was to use 4x4 posts for the verticals, 2x4's for the top and bottom horizontals and a broader 2x6 or 2x9 for the middle horizontal. I would need to use some of the 4x4 posts to extend the hooks outward in some places, so short pieces were taken into consideration when I bought the wood.

To start, I prepped the wood. Sanded all the faces of the boards smooth, then cut the rounded corners off the 2x4's and 2x9 so that they would have sharp edges. This is important because of the joints - I didn't want rounded edges in the tight joints.

The joints for those boards with the 4x4's would be half-lap joints, meaning half of the 4x4's would be cut out so that the other boards would rest into the 4x4's. This involved cutting a dado (notch in the middle of a board) and rabbet (notch at the end of the board.) I have dado blades for my table saw, but it would be very awkward to cut those long boards perpendicular on my table saw, so I used my mitre saw. It has a depth stop on it so it can be prevented from cutting completely through the wood. I make a bunch of repeated thin cuts that can be easily broken off and then smoothed. The pics below can explain this easier.

after the thin strips are broken off and smoothed with a chisel and sandpaper. 

The horizontals will fit into these spaces, making a nice smooth fit. The next requirement was a dry fit. This is assembly before glue, to ensure everything fits as expected.

Dry fit, before glue and screw

The center vertical post is intended to provide something for the big hex bar to knock against, rather than hitting the wall. The curl bar is also an oddly shaped bar, so it could possibly hit the wall, which this center post will catch. Next step was to remove the rounded edge on certain parts of the 4x4's, where the short posts would be sitting. It wasn't necessary, but to me, it makes a more aesthetically pleasing appearance. I used my router set with a very shallow bit that could chew away at the surface of the wood, leaving a clean surface to join the 2 pieces.

Now that it everything was seen to fit, it was time to glue and screw the outer frame, and the short posts that are on the middle horizontal board and the bottom of the verticals. The entire assembly was not screwed together, because it would make it difficult to attach to the wall studs at the house, and would also make it difficult to align on the wall.

I used huge 4" screws (size 12) to attach everything, with a healthy layer of Titebond wood glue at each joint. Once everything dried, I scraped off any glue drips, sanded the glue marks smooth and then painted.

I used Cabinet paint with 4 coats on everything. The paint covers really well, it's quick thick and strong. 4 coats so that it won't be quite so easily damaged from little knocks and bumps from the barbells. Painted using a small roller rather than a brush, because I wanted a uniformly smooth surface, rather than a wood/brush streaked surface texture.

After the paint dried, I attached the hooks. The screws that were provided for these are impressive. I'm very happy with the selection. In Canadian dollars as of March 2022, they cost approximately $50 a pair.

That was all that was needed for this project. I had to wait about 1.5weeks to install because the client contracted Covid. Once the home was safe to enter, I happily installed. Installation was done in a particular order. I described all of this to the client on a print-out so that when they needed to remove the rack if they moved to another house, they would know the order to do it.

Gave a printed copy of these instructions to the client to keep, in case they moved to a new home.

The client helped me align the wide horizontal board, while I screwed it to the studs. After that, I screwed the rest together. One issue I had was that my drill bits were only 3" long, so screwing the big 4" screws into the studs was not working well - they didn't have a pilot hole for the last 1". Forcing it wasn't working, as my drill bit kept skipping out. I went to the hardware store to buy a longer bit. Couldn't find a longer drill bit for wood that was the right size, so I ended up getting one meant for concrete. I'm sure the hole wasn't cut smooth, but it will work and the screw will hold well. 

I painted the screws with a thin coat of paint so they wouldn't shine so much. It won't be a problem when they disassemble, as the paint was a thin, single coat. 

The client was super happy, and suggested it could be a product others with home gyms might be interested in having, since it holds the right amount of bars for them, and takes a fraction of the space that the other barbell racks require. A significant amount of space was opened up for their work-outs. I'm sure they will be happy as they make use of the new space. I enjoyed building this project. The tasks were not overly complicated and once I figured out the design, assembly was quite straightforward. Got to use my table saw, router and miter saw. Always good to use as many tools as possible - that's why I bought them!