From Blog
Built to be mended
Commercial gym equipment is a nightmare to repair, and it does not have to be. Why everything we build uses slotted upholstery, simple stainless bushings and parts that can be cut off and remade.
Published
by Adarsh Gopal
Gym equipment needs to be built to be easy to repair and maintain. Upholstery, bearings, bushings, slats. As it stands, it is a nightmare to mend, and maintenance is worse.
It’s a big reason for eschewing more complicated designs or components when I make things for the gym. If I can use a SS bushing with a simple sleeve and shaft design that can be cut and mended if necessary, that’s what I’ll do. And that’s what the ladder squats, adjustable dip stand, belt squat and safety squat bar are built around. The same thinking runs through the barbells, Swiss bars and dumbbells. Fewer parts, nothing that can’t be cut off and remade.
We pick simple off-the-shelf components such as 7 gauge 60 mm pipe paired with 7 gauge 48 mm and create robust mechanisms. Or laser cut and fold a 10 mm sheet for a pivot. It isn’t complicated. And it’s stainless, so it doesn’t rust and moves smoothly. Everyone warns about galling. Thirteen years on, I’m yet to see it.
Upholstery slots into fixtures that hold it securely. Easy to pull out, replace or wipe down. Pulleys swap out just as easily.
The parts that wear out are usually either buried, fastened in a way that destroys them on removal, or not meant to come off at all. Commercial bench upholstery is screwed into a plywood core. It isn’t impossible but three changes in and the holes won’t hold. None of that is inevitable. Slotting upholstery costs the same as screwing it in. Someone decided replacing is simpler than mending.
And this isn’t a big ask. Bike seats have been built to come off and go back on for decades.
If a small gym can do this, large corporations can do it better.