Do-It-Yourself Stuff with PVC, Chains, Tires, Belts, Ropes, Bands and Crap

Well, I’ve had some free time in the last couple of days, so I decided to make some shit at home. The first thing was a pair of rings, these ones made with PVC pipes and chains (I stole that idea from Ross Enamait’s forums.)

I haven’t hung this stuff yet – I’m installing some swing handles off a 4×12 beam. I will post a pic of me doing this shit. Hopefully it will work and won’t split my head open (clickable thumbnails below):

First, I got two 24″L x 7/8″OD PVC pipes, two 10-ft long zinc plated chain (545lbs workload limit), four 1/4″ quick link (880lbs capacity) and four 4″ swing hardware (screw type, nylon bushing, 150lbs capacity). Some of that hardware can be seen below:

Next, you pass the chain through one of the pipes and secure the ends with one of the quick links:

Next, you bend the PVC pipe until it makes a loop. You use another quick link to secure the ends together:

The end product looks like this.

I still have to hang the swing hardware on the beams. Supposedly each hardware has a 150lbs workload capacity. So each pair can handle 300lbs. Somehow, I don’t buy it. Paranoid me, I’m going to install four, in pairs.

Warning: don’t try to build one with ropes. The pipes flatten out very badly with ropes. The chains prevent the pipes from folding, making a nice loop.

So help me ${DEITY} I’m not gonna break my shit when I’m swinging from that contraption.

Another cool thing is a tire, a good ol’ car tirel you can push it or beat the crap out of it; you can tie it to a belt and drag it around. After a couple of runs, I couldn’t sprint with it anymore.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4NEhXj3GyY

If I can place a 2×12 in the tire with a metal pipe in it, it should become a nice load-carrying sledge. This is convenient when you are in a crowded neighborhood (the noise generated from the tire is quite negligible.)

Another thing you can do with a tire is that you can push it as you do a frog-like leap. If you think this is easy, go do it and come back to tell me so later. I can squat 355lbs just below parallel (that’s 2.15x my weight), and I’m telling you that this thing is hard.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4tcZHO_EtQ

Next, I call this *** cue drums *** the balls of grip… jk… but not quite. When I was getting the stuff from Home Depot, I saw these things in the lumber department:I don’t remember how they are called. They are decorative crap you put on your 4×4s when building a fence or deck. Anyways, they are excellent, me thinks, for gripping.First, you remove the screw from them. Use a plier, not your teeth.

Once you remove the bolt, apply a bit of strong glue and drive an eye screw into the hole. Make sure the eye screw is longer and thicker than the bolt originally removed. Then pass either a chain or a rope through the eye, which you can use to hang weight plates, dumbbells and shit:

Don’t just grip the ball with the eye pointing downwards. Try to do some bicep curls with the eye screw moving parallel to your forearm. The closer it gets to the horizontal, the more difficult that it gets.

Happy training.