CFT Roller J-Hook Review

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CFT started off as a custom fabrication shop for high end race cars. Making VERY custom parts in tons of colors and all kinds of cool stuff.

I had a conversation with Josh the owner in early 2022 and I really liked what they were doing. They offered a ton of small add-ons for your home gym. Pins, adapters, hooks, knobs, whatever. It was the modification dream I had thought of in my head for the picky home gym connoisseur. Make that even better, he was going after, and I quote “white collar products at blue collar prices”.

So essentially, he was aiming to make top shelf American Made products at a price that regular dudes could afford. He was offering customization options through prismatic powder coating and 3D Printing, and you could order items in small batches that met your needs.

SIGN. ME. UP.

When I unpacked these, right out the gate I noticed that they were INCREDIBLY light. They weigh 3.5lbs per J cup… Titans weigh around 9lbs each, and Ghost is around 11lbs each. So we are talking almost 1/3 of what TITAN weighs. Sketchy.

You can see where this plays out, cause the steel is thinner. Looking at the Ghost Strong product specs, it is listed as 3/8 Plate Steel for the product manufacturing. The CFT are listed at 3/16 plate steel!

Plastic

The plastic is 3D printed ABS plastic, where as the Ghost Strong rollers are UHMW lined. When you put pressure on the ABS, it SOUNDS brittle. This is also fairly thin. They do have the plastic on all contact points, which is a nice feature.

CFT also makes these where there isn’t a Left and Right cup. So, the cup wraps around the upright the same on both sides. This is something Titan use to do back in the day. Not only is this aesthetically not pleasing, but with a roller it is more likely for one side to tip a little. Not to a dangerous level, but still annoying and concerning.

You can change out the roller itself to 1 of a few different options including multiple kinds of rollers as well as a bowed bar block. This changes out fairly easy, but like the other options on the market, does require you to have a tool or two handy.

Oddly enough, CFT sent me 6 total rollers, but mixed up the pairs. So I have 3 of one, 2 of another, and 1 of a third. They were mixed up on the cup when they arrived and I had to change them before even using them. So I guess at least we know I didn’t receive any white glove treatment.

Color

I spent about 6 weeks squatting with my bare steel Texas Power Bar with over 400lbs for multiple sets each week. If you aren’t familiar with the knurling on the Texas Power Bar, it is fairly gnarly. It took my skin a month to adapt to the aggressiveness. Then I spent several months with my SSB and Cambered bars hitting chain and reverse band work in the 500+lb range.

After that time, I can say that even though out of the box they had a lot of things to be fearful of, the CFT Roller J-Hook does work. The rollers aren’t too beat up. The plastic is still fully intact. Nothing is chipped, banged, beat up, or looking much worse than the day I unpacked them. The plastic, even the front lip cover, is completely intact. There are a FEW scratches here and there where I’ve lowballed the rerack, but otherwise, these things have handled the abuse.

The bar rolls well with 400+ even with the aggressive knurling of the TPB. After using a standard j-cup for so long, an aggressive bar starts to get annoying. Sandwich j-cups solve some of this, but a roller is just really smooth. And CFT did a good job here.

I want to have more problems with them because of how they feel, but I can’t find them. Aesthetically and feel wise, they leave a lot on the table. I think most of us are accustomed to items being a little overbuilt and when you handle something that technically does the job, it can throw you for a loop. Things meant to withstand commercial applications of millions of reps and crazy bastards slamming shit everywhere. These aren’t that, but they do their job in a home setting even with me handling decent weights.

Price

For sake of testing, I loaded my bar up to over 900lbs and nothing flinched. So again, as much as the out of the box experience had me concerned, I just can’t fault these in their execution. When they first launched, they were $140 for a pair. For what these are; American Made, free shipping, with color choices, that is hard to ignore.

Their current price is sitting at $220, but once you select any of the required options it jumps to nearly $250 and can go much higher very quickly. The Rogue Ghost Rollers are $195 right now. You can customize them and add up the cost obviously, but even balling them out you are looking at MAYBE a few extra bucks for what is considered the standard for roller j-cups. Titan’s are under $150, and were recently on sale for just over $100 which is INSANE.

My biggest knock overall on the CFT rollers is that they aren’t cheap enough to be the budget purchase, with Titan clocking in cheaper and likely more robust, it is hard to recommend them there. And they aren’t high enough quality or robust enough to be the high end purchase. Irwin currently holds that crown and I’ve heard nothing but fantastic things about Irwins customer service. AND the CFT Rollers come in at the same price as the market proven standard of the Ghost Rollers, where Rogue TENDS to be pretty solid with customer service.

So the pricing on these just doesn’t jive. They work and do their job, but I can’t recommend you buy them over the other options on the market based on the price and potential customer service qualms.