Since we started woodworking, we have created and designed a lot of pieces of furniture suitable to arrange different spaces from apartments (bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, hallways), to houses (stairs, steps, and solid oak railings), to restaurants (countertops, benches, tabletops, decorative crafts) to the reception of the hotels. Now we have reached the fitness and gym rooms. It is true that this rack for weights and dumbbells was made for a home gym, but that does not mean it does not match such locations.

We chose to make this project from ash wood. The wooden racks needed some heavy and secure bases at the same time because they had to support very heavyweights. So, the ash wood seemed the best option, considering that we used 5 cm thickness planks. We brought the planks to the size of 4 cm thickness, after planing.

We started the project from the 4 lateral legs that were made to support the weights. In order to do this, we glued four ash wood panels that we later cut to the same size. In order to give them the needed shape, we used a template made out of an MDF board. We realized (because it was already the second time when we used the template for identical repeated cuts) that using the template is the simplest method to cut multiple objects so that they have an identical shape. Using the milling machine, we cut all the four ash panels to have the same shape. The cutouts had to be identical, otherwise, the weights or dumbbells would not have been correctly positioned in their places.

After I brought them to the required shape by milling, the sanding followed. The big surfaces were very easy to sand. I solved the problem very quickly by using the orbital sander. The most complicated part was the sanding of the milled areas and the rounded spaces for the dumbbells. I used the band sander starting with 80 grit band for sanding the straight areas (because the milled surface had many imperfections) and then with a 120 grit band. I manually sanded the rounded spaces using 80 grit sandpaper to straighten the surface as much as possible, gradually, reaching the 120 grit sandpaper so that the surface becomes smoother.

Then, we sanded the outer rounded areas which we could easily sand them using the finishing sander. We manually rounded the edges with 120 grit sandpaper so as not to remain sharp.

In order to fix the milled wooden sides, two by two, we glued another panel, also made out of 4 cm thickness ash wood. We cut the wooden panel into 4 smaller panels: 2 of them used for the bases and 2 of them used for the backs of the racks. This way we have greatly increased their stability.

After we sanded them we fixed them on the milled sides using screws and glue. We preferred to use screws as the mechanical fixing is safer than the one by only using glue. We drilled holes before screwing them to hide the heads of the screws by using wooden dowels (otherwise they would be unsightly). The aspect of the wooden dowel is more pleasant than the aspect of a screw head.

After screwing the wooden base and the back of the rack, we measured, cut and we fixed in the same way (with screws and dowels) the two triangles (actually four: two on each rack). These triangles were going to give to the racks even more rigidity, the more so as their shape is inclined towards the back.

The final finish was made with anti-scratch primer and polyurethane varnish. It was necessary to use a polyurethane varnish because these racks would support some heavy iron bars.

Here is the final result: