Keith Honeycutt’s
The No Whine Cellar
Vintage Home Gym Archive - Entry No 4
Keith Honeycutt likes the color orange. He likes York Barbell. He lifts. But in the simplicity of orange equipment and York Barbell comes the complexity of The No Whine Cellar, Keith’s home gym, which is open to local lifters and visitors of Rochester, New York. Keith began The No Whine Cellar in 2015 and started collecting vintage weights shortly after in 2017.
Why do you use vintage weights? Why not buy everything new?
I have never purchased a plate or dumbbell new in my life - to me, nothing beats vintage USA made iron. If I tried to replace my weight collection with something new today it would cost me 15K or more. I originally had a couple thousand lbs of matching Cap barbell plates and had no clue how inaccurate they were. (I had some 45s that were 2+ lbs off in either direction). Once I got my hands on a decent amount of York plates, I slowly started to phase out the Caps and eventually had enough Yorks to outfit the gym. Similar story with my dumbbells, once I only had York plates, the mismatched hex dumbbells stood out like a sore thumb. That started my 3 + year journey of building a complete York roundhead dumbbell set.
You can invite one strength sport related person and/or athlete to lift with you in your home gym for a day. Who's stopping by?
The Goat, Ed Coan- I would love to pick his brain about lifting and technique.
What are the most used vintage weights in your home gym?
I use my milled Yorks and roundhead dumbbells during every training session.
What is a favorite vintage item in your home gym?
I really like my York deep dish collection but my gym wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t have a complete set of roundheads (0.5-100lbs) or the huge milled collection.
What is your most frequent method for finding and buying vintage weights?
When I was at my peak of trying to add more matching York plates and finish my roundhead collection you would find me checking Craigslist and Marketplace several times a day.
Do you have any advice for someone interested in starting to find and buy vintage weights?
Don’t burn any bridges. It’s a relatively small community - eventually you will find the things you want and a lot of times money won’t buy them and you will need to barter for them. Also, don’t let someone else’s idea of what a vintage collection should look like dictate yours. If you want to have a little bit of everything in your gym then go for it. For me, I love vintage plates but find vintage bars and collars to be less than ideal.
Do you have anything you're currently in search of? A dream find?
In the past couple of years, I have snagged two of the main items that were eluding me for years - a York split sleeve power bar and a marked pair of York 45s. The only thing I can think of that I would like to find now is one of those “aggressive” knurled 60s split sleeves.
Do you have any other hobbies?
A lot of my hobbies are centered around the barbell. I love training and competing in powerlifting. I also consider my home gym (The No Whine Cellar) a hobby and love how I have built and grew it over the years to accommodate several lifters being able to do multiple barbell movements simultaneously.
Is there anything else you'd like to say/include for the readers?
My York plate collection alone is currently at a total of 4,880 lbs, which I think is pretty cool.
See a video tour of The No Whine Cellar here: