So after getting tired of seeing weights scattered on the floor of my basement home gym (and nearly tripping over them a few times), I decided to get organized and bought 2 Cap RK1 Standard plate racks for each side of my power cage from Amazon for $49 each (with free shipping!).
They arrived on my front door in 3 days.
Here's what the box looks like:
I've considered the Olympic version of the plate rack, but from my experience training at a variety of gyms, unloading weight plates from 1" pins are a lot easier than those designed for Olympic plates with 2" pins.
What's In The Box
- 1 triangle frame
- 2 base frames
- Bag of bolts (4), nuts (4) and washers (4)
Assembly
The only tools I needed was:
- a socket wrench
- adjustable wrench
Assembly was a snap. All I had to do was align the holes of the base frames to the holes of the triangle frame, insert the bolts, place the washer & nut on the bolt and tighten. I used the adjustable wrench to hold the bolt in place while I tighten the nut with the socket wrench.
It only took about 10 minutes for each plate rack to unpack & assemble.
Use
Since I have a lot of 45lbs plates, I need to use the bottom-horizontal pins on both ends of the weight tree.
The vertical pins on the center of the plate rack can only hold weights that are small in diameter. I can place 10lbs weights on the center-bottom pin, and 5lbs weights on the center-top pin.
The weight capacity is supposedly 500lbs, but I'm able to store 520lbs of weights on the rack, with some room to spare (pictured below).
What I Like
My home gym is a little bit more organized! The floor no longer looks like a landmine of weight plates since they're now stored on the plate rack.
And since the diameter of the pins are 1", and the diameter of the hole on Olympic plates are 2", it's really easy to load & unload the weights on and off the rack.
What I Don't Like
The base of the plate rack is not leveled, so it tilts from side to side. It's more of a minor annoyance than anything, since it doesn't interfere with the function of the plate rack, which is to hold weight plates.
The paint was scraped off right away when I placed my rusty York Olympic plates onto the holding pins. I suspect this wouldn't be a problem if your plates aren't rusty on the insides like mine. I have since added some oil onto the pins and they seem to slide on much easier.
Lastly, there's no bar holder. But even if there was, it would probably only hold a standard 1" diameter barbell.
Overall
If you have a bunch of Olympic plates (or standard plates) lying around and considering a plate tree, get yourself something that is designed to hold standard 1" plates such as the Cap barbell RK-1 standard plate rack. It's a lot easier to slide Olympic weight plates on and off the tree, it can hold 500lbs+ of weights without any problems, and having all the plates on the rack and not on the floor or leaning against the wall will certainly impact the look of any home gym.
