HAMMER-AND-NAIL FITNESS

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 Issue #171 - December/January 1999

 MOTHER'S WOODSHOP

An easy-to-build rowing machine.

Comedy, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I find humor less in the frantic arm wavings and screechings of sitcom actors than I do in the infomercials that plague nearly every TV station from time to time. My favorites, hands-down, are those shilling the head-spinning diversity of exercise machines, in which spandex-clad pituitary cases shoutingly suggest that if you buy their $399 "Ultimo Gym, "your business, love, and dream life will take on magnificent proportions.

We sat around thinking these thoughts at a meeting at which several of the best woodshop projects of the past month were put through their paces. Graeme Knight's simple and clever rowing machine won, not least because it's getting cold and chopping wood once a week just isn't going to keep those holiday drones from taking permanent residence on our haunches. Rowing works virtually every muscle group in the body, and it doesn't require an "Ultima Gym " to do properly. The rest of these words are Graeme's, and begets a round of kudos from we tinkerers. — Matt Scanlon

With about $70, a single sculling seat, a pair of sculling grips, and a number of 10-pound weights, it is possible to build a rugged and dependable rowing machine.

REAR FRAME CONSTRUCTION

The seat is constrained within two parallel wood strips screwed on top of 2 x 4 lengths. The space between the strips should allow 1/8" clearance outside the seat wheels.

Two 1 1/2" x 7/8" x 3/8"-thick pieces of wood are used to stop the sculling seat from sliding off the back of the rower.

Drill four 3/8"-diameter holes at the front of the frame to enable the rear frame to be bolted to the front, using 3 1/2"-long coach bolts, spring washers, and nuts.

FRONT FRAME CONSTRUCTION

Cut all of the 2 x 4 and the 5/8" x 4 1/2" material to length as shown on the drawings.