It's my winter break right now, so I'm taking advantage of it by doing some of the things that have been on my list for far too long. One of those things was to build a repair stand for the work I do on the bikes in my life. For about $50, you can build this stand, which works remarkably well.

Click the pic to see a (very) short gallery and high res versions.

Essentially, what you need to make this beauty is five pipes, a 90 degree elbow, a 45 degree elbow, and a welder. Since I don't weld, I went to a local muffler shop and they were happy to do it (for free!) The one big lesson I'll share is that you can't (and shouldn't) make this from galvanized metal, since welding that is dangerous. The stuff you want is called "black pipe."