Brand Name Equipment Compared to No Name Brand Equipment

Have many of you purchased a brand name that is not well known or equipment that is not branded?

I have seen a few benches and racks on some sites that do seem to be quality. I am welder buy trade so I do have an eye and understanding of fabrication methods.
There obviously is a lot of cheap constructed equipment but there is also some quality heavy duty benches and racks.
Or do people tend to follow the more popular brand names?
I am mainly talking about racks and benches here.

I understand that Olympic bars/ needle bars may be a bit different.
I don't do any power lifting so the guys in this field will of course have their preference.

So for the normal gym rats, do you prefer your branded well known equipment and weights or do you also purchase lessor known brands to save some money?
Cheers

Buy the good stuff I say unless you can make it yourself.
I had an Avanti gym that I bought in 1999 when I didn't know better. It did the job but wasn't the most solid piece of equipment.
Don't skimp on quality i say.

Personally I only buy Samson Gym Equipment, unfortunately it's all second hand as they went broke years ago as people preferred cheap Chinese tin equipment rather than solid welded BHP Steel.

It's not really expensive if you shop around and it's solid as a rock, been using it since about 1986, and my son will probably be using it.

If you buy new I would buy better stuff that lasts or in your case I would make my own.

Are there any brands that are actually manufactured in Australia?

What about equipment like force which I think is designed in the USA.
To keep manufacturing costs low these would have to be assembled in China I'm guessing like most equipment.
Other brands like muscle motion, where did this brand originate from?

I think muscle motion is an australian brand. I know ABC bars are made in australia.

I bought a force rack recently, with the lat pulldown attachment, it fits very well for its price, looks quite nice too imo. However, its nothing compared to the hammer strength commercial rack!

Yes I have heard hammer strenght have top notch equipment.
I think I'm going to go down the path of making my own personal equipment again.
Can't beat the quality and durability.
Plus you get a bit of pride on completion.
Cheers

Picked up my ABC barbell from the factory literally hot from knurling a few weeks ago. Local and seems great quality

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Iron Edge make a lot of their own equipment in Australia, like their racks and barbells. Not sure where the steel is from.

Sam said:

Iron Edge make a lot of their own equipment in Australia, like their racks and barbells. Not sure where the steel is from.

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A lot of steel we use here in Australia is from china, Italy , Spain.
The demand is so strong at the moment with all the gas projects going on through out Australia. The demand has been so high that we were sent home for a few weeks until the stock supply of steel arrived.

The quality of steel is high quality from Overseas. Its just when it comes to building gym equipment they use a thinner wall material say 2mm or 1.6mm. It might only mean a few dollars per meter less but when you are doing mass production you could imagine the costs saving over a year or years. And there labour costs are so much lower.

The previous company I was working for had 12 pressure vessels manufactured in the Philippines. It was cheaper to get them made over there and shipped to Australia. The quality was A+ and my boss made a motza.

You just wonder how much %profit these Australian suppliers make on there equipment....and how long they can sustain it with fuel, wages and general associated costs.
I hope they hang around as its good to see genuine aussie equipment

Well this is it, not concerned where the steel came from, but some cheap imported gym gear is only made of very thin wall material, where someone like Samson used standard steel stock, so it's heavy gauge steel like used in construction work.

I spoke to the guy at Samson not long before they closed as they used to cast their own weight plates in a Sydney foundary (their own) and by the end they could import the plates from Chine ready made and painted for less than they could buy the raw materials to cast their own plates.

In the end they just closed their doors

I have a whole gym of their equipment and it will certainly out live me and I have owned some of it since about 1986, bought straight from the workshop where it was made.

Yes it is a shame the direction in which way Australian manufacturing is headed, or has headed. But what can you do when the big players like Ford are shutting the doors and no doubt the government can not keep funding Holden.
But still we are called the lucky country.

We are pretty lucky and that's the problem to some degree, we all get payed too much money, so we can buy stuff made overseas, like ipods, cars and crap.

Most people still spend more than they earn or can afford, and to keep up we have to pay our workers too much money, but no one wants to pay.

It's a vicious circle. Where as in China everything is cheap especially labour, went to buy a fuel pump the other day at Repco and the guy wanted $340, exact same fuel pump on ebay straight from China, brand new in the same box, $60 plus $15 postage. So China got my $$

Proportional to the Chinese workers salary though is that pump actually cheaper?... Plus consider the social advantages of labour laws, environmental restrictions etc.....

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NightFallTech said:

Proportional to the Chinese workers salary though is that pump actually cheaper?... Plus consider the social advantages of labour laws, environmental restrictions etc.....

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I don't care about the Chinese worker, he got payed either way and the same guy/factory made both pumps so social advantages of labour laws don't really apply, it's the Aussie reseller that is gouging the public, adding a fucking 400% mark up so he can fund his lifestyle/wages/expenses etc, but now I have an extra $200 plus I can spend on something else, like take the family out for the day or something, rather than the Repce owner taking his family out with my $200.

At the end of the day the fuel pump comes from the same factory no matter where I buy it or how much I pay for it.