miniwhinny wrote: ... Their 2" (outside diameter) steel comes in 21ft lengths so I could easily make a high bar with rope or swing hanging on it that's quite high and could be quite wide to prevent hitting the sides. If I came off one of the uprights with a T I could make the high bars at an angle to add to the stability of the whole thing (if you can picture what I'm saying)
Do you think that would work?
For the reasons Becca explained, hanging rings from a highbar is a bad idea. You could, however, put the 3 apparatus side-by-side, so that you save the cost and space of uprights. Independently (unless you use some of the trees on your property to hang the rope), you would need 6 uprights. Side-by-side, you'd only need 4 uprights.
If your pipe is in 21 foot lengths, then allowing a few feet into the ground, you'd have maybe an 18 foot high cross-section to hang the rings and rope from. That's about right. Maybe if it's solid enough you could hang the rings and rope from the same cross-piece, so you'd only need 3 uprights.
The highbar MUST be at it's own proper level. Not so high that it's dangerous, and not so low that you can't swing with a long trail leg. Also allow for Matt growing in the next few years, and allow for some of his taller friends coming over. There's also some drills that you can do where you jog up to the bar, jump up and grasp it, then swing. For these drills, the height needs to be "optimized" for each vaulter ... according to their height and their jumping ability. An ADJUSTABLE height for the highbar is highly desirable for these reasons.
I'm not sure what you mean by a "T", but maybe it's this ...
If you're using 2" steel for the uprights, then you could get 2 steel (or plastic) sleeves in the shape of a "T" and slightly bigger diameter than 2", so that the T on each side of the highbar slides up and down to adjust the height. You could have bolt-holes and bolts on the uprights ... drilled every 2-3 inches ... to adjust the height.
One minor problem you'll find with this is that the T joints will be 2" on all 3 openings.I forget the ideal highbar diameter, but it's a lot smaller than 2". So you'll need to buy a couple more pieces that reduce the 2" down to the diameter of the highbar. These are likely available at any plumbing supplies outlet.
Kirk