Details matter

My welder is shifting over to a bigger space ! I am excited :) he’s getting a laser cutter and a giant press brake. This should dramatically reduce my turnaround time for ideas. So I am wrapping up some of our old projects and the material we had lying around. That included these three single pieces of 10,15 and 20 kg tribells. I didn’t get around to wrapping it up last year. And will be completing them now.

But here’s what i want to draw your attention to. The knurling on this handle. It was laid down by a machinist named Venkatesh who I’ve been working with since 2016.

The man is an artist. From the few times I have watched him work with his decades old machine, i am blown away by the conssistency with which he lays down good knurl.

Here’s why it’s hard. The rod or pipe is spinning. Slowly. A tool with the ‘knurl pattern’ is then applied with a lot of pressure on the moving rod or pipe. The art here being to make the knurl consistent and continuous. No overlaps, no even pattern, no differences in pressure across the length.

Doing this is way harder than it sounds. I’ve tried using 4-5 other machinists. They cannot lay it down with the same consistency. In fact, they’ve messed it up.

You can remove the human component by having knurl laid down using a CNC machine. But that requires much larger orders.

I am talking about this obscure detail for a simple reason: clients and even visitors to our gym praise the feel and grip of the pull up bars, trap bars and barbells in our gym. It grips without biting or tearing. And we have bars with aggressive knurl and less aggressive knurl too. And it makes a difference.