I’m sure it will be fine they have been around a long time. My only experience with Crain was a okie deadlift bar I used at a gym. Hopefully the knurl is less aggressive on the power bar because the deadlift bar was aggressive beyond anything I’ve used including the Ohio deadlift bar and Texas deadlift bar. My hands were shredded after a few heavy sets of 5.
We did not get a bar from them. I agree bars might be just ok given its quite a different manufacturing process from the rest of them.
But got bumper plates and a squat stand w/ pull-up bar and they were fantastic. The bumper plates have a nice grippy edge and weighed in exactly. The squat stand is very sturdy.
Garage gym reviews website has lots of reviews for fringe.
I feel I can close out this thread, or at least my contributions. I received my Okie Power Bar today, less than a week from when I ordered, and a very fair price - $334 including UPS Ground shipping. This is a very nice bar, and I really like the finish and knurling even though I've read some say it's rough. And since I didn't get my day's training in this morning, I hit it tonight in a 90 degree garage, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I finally have a bar that doesn't try to slide down my back on squats, so I was finally able to perform good low bar squats. I'm going to enjoy this bar very much, and I even as a novice, can recommend Ricky Dale Crain and doing business with him, he's quite pleasant to deal with.
I do have one side question; my squat rack's bar holder (the hooks or yoke I guess) is metal. I believe I've read it's best to put a covering on them, and IIRC Delrin is the best material to use? If so, I'll go buy some; I have some 1/16" and 1/8" PTFE strips currently, but suspect it's too soft and will wear through too fast.
If Fringe has what you need they ship FAST.
FYI: Mr Crain has 20kg plates in stock.
Like the rest of the world I've been looking for a couple of 45s and I'm considering getting the 20kg simply because there would be no shipping since I live 30 minutes away. I've got fractional plates if OCD kicked in and I NEEDED 45 POUNDS
Thanks for the tip on the 45's, I'll check them out, though I probably need a couple bumpers before more iron.
As for my post above about the material to protect the hooks and my bar, I found maybe a better and less expensive solution. A cheap $2 white UMHW cutting board from Walmart and some heavy duty 3M double sided tape work perfect. And if the 1/8" UMHW pieces wear through, I can just simply peel them off, cut some more pieces and replace.
A relevant thread, UHMW strips w/adhesive on one side, from McMaster-Carr:
Garage gyms
(Mine haven't budged yet.)