When I was in Los Angeles in 1968 I visited Vince's Gym in North Hollywood and of course Golds Gym in Venice. Gironda had basic equipment and wooden benches. Joe Gold knew how to weld so fashioned solid steel equipment with the help of Zabo. I used to dream about building gym equipment and in truth nothing out there was very good until Nautilus arrived in about 1970. I bought a gym at West Ryde in Sydney in 1971 and got a welder there, Richard James, to modify a calf machine. In 1975 he showed me how to weld with a home welder and rods. I had an unused room in the back of the gym so started building some gym equipment. I got a 9 inch angle grinder, cheap power hack saw, pedestal drill and a home welder. Away I went. First equipment I made was a standing leg raise. Mine was on an angle, had a back rest and hand grips. Then I built a leg extension machine with adjustable back rest. First one that I remember seeing. In 1980 I was at the Mr Olympia contest at the Opera House in Sydney and met Dan Howard. He had some photos of his gym equipment and I thought I could build similar equipment. I quit teaching PE that year and in 1981 I rented a factory to make gym equipment. I bought a radial drill, lathe and a steel work bench and away we went. I had another guy as a partner but he abandoned ship after a few months when the outgoings were high and we had no income from sales. One day a rep demonstrated a Mig welder so I bought one and it made welding a breeze. One of the first engineering solutions I found was to replace chains and sprockets on a Smith Machine. Mine ran on linear bearings. I believe I was the first to use linear bearings in a Smith Machine and leg press. I even used them on all weight stacks. Way over the top solution and very expensive because they required chromed, hardened shafts. Eventually I got a contract to supply some equipment to a gym in Canberra. In those days I never charged for delivery or installations. No wonder I never made a profit! I would reinvest any money into more materials and also better engineering machines and tools. I could read engineering manuals so figured out what I needed to do for bearings, etc.
My motto was to never copy any equipment...I always designed my own. This, of course, is time consuming especially when you have to make a few prototypes before getting things right. Joe Gold would build a piece of equipment then install it in the gym and wait for criticism to see how it went. After many, many years of making equipment I can now design and build something that works right away. I suppose I could have patented many of my designs but in truth that is a very expensive process because you have to apply to each country you want protection in. Trust me, most equipment companies are ruthless when it comes to dealing with people trying to sell their designs. I have had people here in Australia copy my equipment. What can I say. One company, Titan Gym Equipment, flew me to Adelaide to supervise their fitter to build a leg press with my design. I was supposed to be paid $5000 for the design and a few for each machine they sold. Guess how much I got paid? Zero. Their accountant was out the day I left and that was the end of it. Right proper theft but I couldn't sue him because he had everything in his wife's name. They all considered they were geniuses to build their equipment. I would visit local manufacturers at trade shows and point out some flaws but my criticisms fell on deaf ears.
I did get contracts to supply all the equipment for two gyms in Sydney. Bob Landers and Chris Lee. I bought extra materials and bearings for my own gyms that I made later. I eventually stopped building equipment for other gyms because it wasn't worth my time. Especially when I kept redesigning most of the equipment.
When I finally got my patent approved for my biceps-supinator machine in 1995 I called Arthur Jones in Florida. We got along just fine over the phone. Pity I lived so far away as I would have enjoyed meeting him. Years before he mentioned in IronMan magazine ads that the second function of the biceps was supination. That is twisting your hands inwards. Yet, Arthur never made a machine that had resistance in two degrees of freedom. I set out to see if this was possible. I even visited the mechanical engineering head at Sydney University but he couldn't help me. I got some help from a guy I shared my factory with, Dave McKay. I didn't use his solution but found my own and I rushed down to the patent attorney thinking I had a real money maker there. He told me it would cost about $10,000 to apply for a patent in 5 countries. Australia, USA, Canada, Germany and Great Britain. About $50,000 later I had to forget about the patent as the annual fees were way too high. In retrospect I should have made the machine and then approached companies to sell it. Even then there is no guarantee I would make any money. I wasn't that skilled at tool making but in 2001 I got around to building it. The first prototype worked fine but I wasn't happy about the movement so took it back to the factory and made a major modification. There were several more modifications made and now I am quite pleased that it is much more user friendly. I have it installed where I live part of the week. I set up a few more machines so I could train arms, calves and legs. We closed a few of our gyms over the years and most of the surplus equipment is stored at my place. I really have to sell some equipment to have more room to move about and set up the rest of my home gym. We had a gym in Sydney for 46 years but finally closed it in 2017. That was a disaster and I didn't get much from the sale of our equipment. Never go into business with your ex!
The leg presses I built in 1987 are probably some of the best ever made. Stainless steel fittings. Bolted sleds. Counter weight and shock absorbers. Dual function: sitting or laying down. Linear bearings on both sleds. I also made sure the machine wouldn't tip over if unloaded from one of the sides. The machine pictured is the ladies variation. The men's machine didn't have a counterweight and had longer weight holders for plates.
