How to make dumbbells yourself

In this workshop I will tell you how I made homemade cement dumbbells for home sports. At the cost of manufacturing, this will be several times cheaper than purchased dumbbells.

Necessary materials

To make two dumbbells, I needed:

• Two 3/4 steel tubes about 50 cm long with threads on both sides.
• Four regular 3/4 tees.
• One rubber step cuff (adapter) and one clamp on the diameter of the sides of the cuffs.
• River sand cement.
• A bit of silicone grease for rubber processing.

Dumbbell Making

In fact, the idea is very simple:

• On each end of a pipe I screwed on a tee.
• To make the first part of the dumbbell, I built a kind of tripod so that the handle of the future dumbbell could be suspended.
• On a substrate made of a piece of foam, I installed a rubber cuff so that the handle was located in the center, but did not lean on the foam substrate.

Then I mixed a cement mortar: 1.5 parts of fine river sand sifted through a sieve and 1 part cement, which gently filled the cuff with a pipe placed in it with a tee at the end. By the way, I lubricated the rubber “mold” from the inside with silicone grease so that the cement did not stick to it much, since I planned to use it again. I left the cast blank for a day to set the solution. A day later, when the solution solidified well, I removed the workpiece from the tripod and cut the cuff to remove it from the cement.

Making the second half of the weighting compound

I missed the edges of the cut cuff with instant glue and connected them. After the glue seized, put on the ends of the cuff clamps so that it does not creep when pouring cement. Since the previous tripod will not withstand the weight of the dumbbell, to fill the second part, I hung it between two cuttings laid on cinder blocks. Then he repeated the process: he set the restored mold for the weighting agent on the foam substrate in height so that the tee did not reach about 1 cm to the base, knead the solution and carefully fill the cuff. After 24 hours, he removed the rubber cuff, and one dumbbell was completely ready.
In the following days, he made the second dumbbell in the same way.
When the dumbbells were ready, it occurred to me that if I had 4 cuffs, they could not have been removed - we would get dumbbells with a rubberized weighting compound. Therefore, if you decide to repeat, consider my experience.
Original article in English