Building a boxing ring!

[Mickey Oneil]

im incredibly jealous, lol
Keep us posted on the progress

 

[Zone]

Very nice ring. My gym doesn't really have a real ring. Awesome work, especially since it's custom made.

 

[Zoti]

The ring has been in use for about 10 months now.

I had to tighten the upper rope a bit. It seems like the Manila ropes stretch and the top rope takes Most of the abuse.

The duck tape rope cover works great. About a week ago I did some touch up to the top rope. Like I said. It takes most of the abuse.

Other than that, everything is holding on pretty well. I went under the ring with a wrench to tighten the bolts but none needed any tightening.

I'd have 6-8 guys in the ring working clinch and it's fine. I made it so heavy that it does not move at all.

If I was to build another one I would use some lighter, thinner metal.

I've had several people contact me and ask me if I could build them a ring. I would love to but I have done all the welding work in my back yard. If I had a shop I would be mass producing them but that's not the case.

However, if anyone wants to learn from my experience, please do contact me.

 

[Zoti]

Relocated the gym and the ring to a new location. With some preparation it was not too bad and everything fitted into one trip inside a 24' Uhaul truck. In one day we packed everything and got the frame re assembled.

A week later the new gym was open for business again.

 

[mawashi geri**]

nice job man

 

[rms13]

that looks awesome. I like how you incorporated the pad holding shelves right into the ring

 

[Zoti]

Those are actually toy shelves from my son's day care but they worked perfectly under the ring for storing the pads.

 

[Zoti]

I went and fixed the links of the build up for your viewing pleasure.

 

[Long Nguyen]

very nice, thanks for the pics

 

[nvs1985]

Yeah, welding isn't rocket science. It's a skill that's easy to pick up, especially if you're already handy with tools and it's also even easier if you have someone who's a pro teaching you.

Welding properly is not easy, attaching metal together is easy.
Its always easier if pro tells you which is good and what things should be taken inconsideration.

Stainless steel is annoying to weld sometimes cause of the bending it does.

I was bit skeptical when i opened this thread but you made awesome job.

 

[Jim Reaper]

Great job, sir. I'm impressed.

 

[brownfeet]

wow great job man. bet it feels even better knowing your working out on a ring you built by hand

 

[Zoti]

People love the ring. I always get comments on how great it looks. I'm a proud daddy. Lol

 

[laohu69]

A few more pictures to show the construction.

Great job!!
Not to be nit picky but you should not bolt the bottom chord, from a structural point of view. The attachment should only be at the top chord and the bottom chord floats. If you're worried about deflection then you have the bottom chord angles extend (as you've done) and have a plate mounted that bisects them (again, as you've done) to keep the bar joist from deflecting and causing failure.
But this is actually a moot point since your joist system is drastically over engineered and will never be anywhere near its loading capacity. As you noted you could have saved money by engineering it closer to actual load limits and utilized lighter / less material. But then I'm also known to over engineer everything that I build so that there's no possibility of failure (I built 4 bag stands for my school capable of supporting well over 10 tons each and all they hold are 100# thai bags).

 

[laohu69]

Here's a detail of what I was talking about. But like I said, it's moot since your structure could support many times over anything you'll ever load on it in the future. But if you decide to build another one you could save a lot of $$ by sizing things smaller (since you pay for steel by the #), and then you'd have to take deflection into account.

 

[Zoti]

Oh, Awesome to hear from someone who actually knows engineering.

What I did is look at the way they build commercial buildings. I did notice they only attach the beams at the top point. Is that done so they have some flexibility for expansion and settlement?

Like you said, it is over engineered but I prefer it that way than to have it fail. Also, a heavy ring doesn't move around.

I also bolted top and bottom to minimize movement since it is a rather small structure which is not attached to the slab. Bolting top and bottom at the corners prevents the posts from caving in because of the tension of the ropes. I also have a cable that goes in an X shape between the posts to counter the ropes.

What I would probably do different is use some lighter, thinner metal. Maybe put 2 less beams (3 instead of 5) in the center. The rest I'd keep the same. It's extremely stable.

 

[laohu69]

Oh, Awesome to hear from someone who actually knows engineering.

What I did is look at the way they build commercial buildings. I did notice they only attach the beams at the top point. Is that done so they have some flexibility for expansion and settlement?

Like you said, it is over engineered but I prefer it that way than to have it fail. Also, a heavy ring doesn't move around.

I also bolted top and bottom to minimize movement since it is a rather small structure which is not attached to the slab. Bolting top and bottom at the corners prevents the posts from caving in because of the tension of the ropes. I also have a cable that goes in an X shape between the posts to counter the ropes.

What I would probably do different is use some lighter, thinner metal. Maybe put 2 less beams (3 instead of 5) in the center. The rest I'd keep the same. It's extremely stable.

Yes, the joist & girder are attached at the top only to allow for deflection downward under load. As long as deflection is vertical then you won't have failure until you reach the actual load limit of your design. If deflection starts on a horizontal plane then you have a catastrophic failure. If it deflects horizontally the top and bottom chord will not deflect the same way and you will get a twisting motion which will cause the failure. I recently had to redo a building where the entire roof structure had collapsed under heavy snow loads due to this (improper installation was the culprit).
Technically you have 2 joist girders and the rest are bar joists. The 2 that run perpendicular to the rest are joist girders and they carry a much greater load since all the rest of your joists attach to them, so they have to carry basically the total weight load. They would be sized larger than your joists themselves which only have to carry the weight load of their small portion of the platform.
How is your cable "X" system working? In my build thread I did on making a cage someone asked about a boxing ring (I didn't know this thread existed then) and I started putting together some preliminary drawings for one (I'll stop and just refer them to this thread if asked again) and I was planning on using some 1/4" round rod, or 1" x 1" x 1/8" angle, with a turnbuckle welded onto the end so that tension could be adjusted as needed when ring ropes stretched. I was afraid that there would be too much stretch in using cable and a lack of precise adjustment.
Don't confuse me and my comments with a structural engineer either, I've just been working with this stuff for several decades and picked it up. I know how to design and size things but an actual structural engineer can tell you the hows and whys better.
I build things for associate schools of ours at cost so I'm always doing different things. Nobody has asked for a ring yet but if they do I'm just going to plagiarize your design (with a few tweaks). :icon_chee
Again, great job and a fantastic ring!!!!

 

[Zoti]

The X is simple. Each Post has a turnbuckle attached at the bottom with a 2000lbs rated cable going to the post across it. I just tighten everything with the turnbuckles.
This way the top ropes can be tight and there is not a lot of pressure on the frame itself by the ropes.

You can see the cables (I've used a chain as well as the cables were not long enough) at the bottom of the posts.