very well made
The sticker on the bottom of this thing says "American Designed - and very well made in China". Well, they ain't kidding. This is one hell of a nice piece of equipment. For starters, the shipping weight is 42 lbs. This thing is built like a truck. They use heavy steel box-sections for the frame, and the bolt flanges are welded all the way around, not just tacked. The bolts are beautifully plated, and they use nylon-collar lock nuts rather than a pile of split washers. In case you are wondering from looking at the photo, yes, this thing is tall. The bars are at 53" off the floor. For me, its great since I'm 6'3". However, there is also a cross bar at just the right height to use as a step when mounting. They include strips of no-slip tape to put on it, which is great. Another thing I was trying to figure out from the photo was how wide the grips are spaced. If your wondering, they have a center-to-center spacing of 21" at the front, and taper outward to 23.5" at the widest possible grip position. The bars themselves are nice and fat at 1.5" in diameter with tough rubber grips. This thing could definitely survive in a gym environment. The plastic end-caps on the feet are very well made, but are really for carpet. If you have wood floors like me, you will want to put a pad under them. I plan to just buy some adhesive rubber bumpers from the hardware store. The company apparently does not make a chin up attachment for this unit, which is a shame since the base is definitely stable enough to support one. I plan to bolt extensions on to the vertical members and attach one. I was planning to do this all along, which is the main reason I bought this instead of a lighter model. Call me obsessive, but I really wanted a dip station with full length bars, and all the combo dip/chin stations I saw had only little stub handles for the dip. Assembly involves tightening just eight bolts. You will need a couple of 3/4" wrenches, or an adjustable wrench and a pair of pliers. They also include a bottle of touch-up paint. If you're wondering, the paint color is sort of a dull metalic silver-gray. Overall, these guys clearly take pride in their work. Its very well made with great attention to detail, and even though it's more expensive that some others here, I think its a bargain for the price.
