Make Your Own Dip Bars

A blueprint and process to making your own dip bars so you can add one of the best bench accessories to your home gym on a budget

A couple weeks back I was playing around with some blueprints for dip bars because I didn’t want to trash my kitchen chair while doing dips on them during self isolation. 

In my professional opinion, if you have to train at home and can’t bench press right now, dips are probably one of your best options for building your bench press with limited equipment as they can load the pecs in a similar vector to how you would bench, assuming you load them properly. 

I took some time and drafted up a blueprint in SketchUp and wanted to share them with you. 

The file is divided into several steps with the cuts and measurements all outlined so you can easily read them. There are circles where each new screw goes in every step.

All you need to assemble these is some wood glue (optional), wood screws, a hole saw, and a drill. Easy peasy. Between making cuts, and assembly, it should take you around an hour and a half to do. Your total material cost should be about $40 all in. 

Materials
– 4x 2x4x8 boards
– ~50x 2.5″ wood screws
– 2x 3/4″x18″ pipe
– drill
– 1.25″ hole saw
– quick cut saw if you don’t get your boards cut at home depot.

Instructions
1. Cut all your lumber down to size. You will need 4×12″, 4×15″, 4×18″, 2×24″, 4×30″
2. Cut a 45 degree angle on both sides of your 12″ boards as well as a 45 degree cut on one side of the 24 inch boards            and a 45 degree wedge on the other side.
3. Using a hole saw, cut a hole in the top portion of your 30″ boards for the pipe.
4. Using wood glue and your screws, assemble the bars.

I’m giving away the Sketchup file for free but if you feel that this was a valuable resource to you for building some low cost equipment for your upper body training, please donate what you think is fair using the link below. 

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