Free-Standing Stall Bars/Pull-up Bar Plans

I'm posting this as an addendum to other posts and to describe my experience building a free-standing stall bar assembly with pull-up bar extension.  The attached plan has all the information you need to build these.  I'm a military officer with several more permanent duty station moves ahead of me before I retire.  Although I'll eventually screw 2x6s into wall studs and then lag the stall bar cross-pieces into the boards, for now they must be free-standing, movable, and I must be able to disassemble them.

I followed the method outlined in the sticky on this forum.  Uprights and pull-up extensions are 2x6s, dowels are 1 1/2" poplar, and feet are 2x10s.  Assembly is 38" wide, 88" tall (not as tall as the usual 96" due to my ceiling height).  Holes are drilled completely through and permanent dowels are fixated from posterior to anterior with a GRK 3 1/8" self-drilling self-tapping screw on each end, which provides great stability.  The top off-set rung was originally also placed in the 2x6, but when I pre-assembled them to test the rigidity, I found my feet touched the ground when hanging from this bar.  I had room in the pull-up extension, so I drilled a hole there and drilled the pull-up bar holes also, both with a diameter of 1 5/8" so I could remove that bar depending on whether I want to hang or to do pull-ups.  My biggest concern in deciding how long to make the pull-up extension was to make the off-set distance not TOO great so as to make the assembly unstable but off-set enough so I could do pull-ups with my back to the ladder and my head would move obstructed around the bars.  Since I only have a bar in hole 11 (on the plans) when I do pull-ups, the next lower bar is hole 9, so my head and body easily move to the top bar.

Hopefully you'll find these plans useful.  I'm very happy with how these turned out.

Free-Standing Stall Bar Plans.pdf

Thank you very much! I have been thinking of how to build free-standing stall bars, and yours is the best guide I've seen so far. Do you find it important for stability to have it pushed up against a wall, or do you think it could be stable in an open space, with nothing behind it? Maybe this could be copensated for by having the bottom "legs" extend into the back as well as the front.

This is free-standing and completely stable.  As the pictures above show, the feet extend about 7 inches behind the assembly and no part is touching the wall.  I made this with the expectation that I could even put this outside to work out during the summer.  Eventually I will bolt this to the wall, but will cut the feet flush on the back so I can snug it right up to the wall yet still keep the feet to the front.  I think the legs extending to the front would still be important to counteract the torque of doing pull-ups. 

Brent

One last tip for assembly....I drilled four holes for bolts in the pull-up extension, and in the bottom ends of the uprights.  I then loaded up one of the GRK screws, aligned the parts to 90 degrees, and drilled the one screw thru the upper rear corner hole into the top of the upright.  With that screw somewhat loose and letting the extension rotate, I fine-tuned with a roofer square to ensure it was precisely at 90 degrees, then drilled a second screw through a second hole into the upright.  I then drilled all the bolt holes thru the open holes and inserted bolts and washers, then swapped out the screws, drilled holes, and inserted bolts.  I followed the same procedure with the feet.  Following that technique lets you really accurately attach the parts.

Brent  

I love it! Great job! Keep us updated. 

how much did it cost?

Don't remember but well under $100. Head over to Lowes and tally up: 10 dowels at $4-$5 per, whatever ~20 feet of 2x6 costs, and the boards I used for the feet and cross pieces. Add to that prices for lag bolts, screws and polyurethane. I had to buy a drill bit too.

well under or over...

Do you think it would still be stable if you used something smaller than 2x10 for the feet? Ihave a small apartment and taking up 10ft of floor space for the feet would be a bit hard.

2x10 references the thickness and width of the board in inches, not the length. I haven't looked at my plans for a while but I think the 2x10 feet extend forward 4 feet and back 1 foot. For sure there is NOT 10 feet of floor space occupied. I don't think I'd go smaller than what I have, unless you lop off the rear and bolt it to the wall, but then it's not free-standing.

Someone on these forums posted free-standing stall bars made of 4" x 6" uprights and used 2x10 or 2x12 feet and they did NOT extend to the rear. 4x6s are just massive heavy pieces of wood, so that extra weight would add to the stability. If you made your bars out of 2x6 uprights like I did you could experiment with using a 2x12 board for feet cut flush with the back or just try the 2x10s and push it up to a wall. All the weight and torque goes toward the front as you hang on the stall bars and as long as you're not leaping onto the bars, you don't need a lot of stability to the rear.

Thanks that is what I was thinking after reviewing your drawings 2x10x5 and have maybe 11 inches on the back end.

Would you mind posting some sort of text tutorial? I'm not very handywork-skilled, and am struggling to figure out how to build this thing. Thanks!

Here is a nice photo essay -

http://m.imgur.com/a/I0ZaW

Yep, that's a great tutorial, studied that one before I built mine. Follow those instructions as written. Mark out your 2x6 uprights to figure out where rungs will be, clamp them together, and drill a pilot hole through both at each dowel center. Strongly recommend you use a drill press to drill holes for dowels. You'll see how easy it will be to drill off-vertical with Forstner bits, and then you'll have troubles putting on dowels. Assemble the uprights and dowels first, then add top and bottom horizontal insertions.

Brent

Sadly I do not have space for wall mounted. I was wondering if you could put up a tutorial for the freestanding bars.

Thanks!

You'd just need to add a couple of cross braced 2x4s to the bottom as a base.

Yes, just build the basic bars, then add the feet per the plans I posted. Assuming you use 2x6s like I did and like those other instructions show, additional cross braced 2x4s are fine, but unnecessary. If you follow the plans and use bolts and washers for the horizontal base and really tighten them down, the structure is so rigid that you don't need more. Mine have held up great since I started using them last fall. But there's never any harm in adding more wood!!

Okay. I will enlist the help of my older son and update you guys. Thanks for the help!

In the absence of a drill press, you may be able to build a small jig to fit your hand drill "upside down" and drill straight holes.  

my tabletop drill press gets a lot of use for random household projects, though.   certainly worth the money.

brntj said:

I'm posting this as an addendum to other posts and to describe my experience building a free-standing stall bar assembly with pull-up bar extension.  The attached plan has all the information you need to build these.  I'm a military officer with several more permanent duty station moves ahead of me before I retire.  Although I'll eventually screw 2x6s into wall studs and then lag the stall bar cross-pieces into the boards, for now they must be free-standing, movable, and I must be able to disassemble them.

 

I followed the method outlined in the sticky on this forum.  Uprights and pull-up extensions are 2x6s, dowels are 1 1/2" poplar, and feet are 2x10s.  Assembly is 38" wide, 88" tall (not as tall as the usual 96" due to my ceiling height).  Holes are drilled completely through and permanent dowels are fixated from posterior to anterior with a GRK 3 1/8" self-drilling self-tapping screw on each end, which provides great stability.  The top off-set rung was originally also placed in the 2x6, but when I pre-assembled them to test the rigidity, I found my feet touched the ground when hanging from this bar.  I had room in the pull-up extension, so I drilled a hole there and drilled the pull-up bar holes also, both with a diameter of 1 5/8" so I could remove that bar depending on whether I want to hang or to do pull-ups.  My biggest concern in deciding how long to make the pull-up extension was to make the off-set distance not TOO great so as to make the assembly unstable but off-set enough so I could do pull-ups with my back to the ladder and my head would move obstructed around the bars.  Since I only have a bar in hole 11 (on the plans) when I do pull-ups, the next lower bar is hole 9, so my head and body easily move to the top bar.

 

Hopefully you'll find these plans useful.  I'm very happy with how these turned out.

Anybody have feedback regarding the durability of the 1.5 inch x 38 inch popler? Are these rungs strong enough?

Thanks, Ryan

They've worked well for me, and holding up well after over a year and one move. I'm 152 lbs.

I'm a little confused, how did you move them? Just curious. Did you disassemble them?

The movers unbolted the horizontal "feet" and the top horizontal extensions for the hanging bar and the pull-up bar (and these two bars just slip out of the holes so are easily removable too). The main portion of vertical sides and rungs were left intact and moved like a extra-wide ladder. This main portion could have been completely disassembled too, but the "wide ladder" is easy to move; the whole thing fully assembled is pretty heavy and ungainly. Brent

Could you please fix the pdf link?