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Now that I have the rack for my truck I was trying to figure out a way to get that kayak up on the roof a little easier. Keep in mind the extreme weighs 65 plus pounds and when you are dealing with a long object it tends to be hard to carry and I kayak by myself most of the time and I didn't want the thing falling on cars or breaking my back. So I sat down and sketched out an idea for a hully roller.
First I built the base that lays along the window of my truck. I took an elbow and connected a 3/4" pvc pipe to it and did the same on the other side. Once this was done I put a T joint on one end and had to figure out what angle I wanted it to lay in. Basically I wanted the hully roller to be at an angle that wasn't too high but high enough so I could roll the yak onto the kayak rack bars. Once the angle was complete I glued the base and the T joint together. Now came the hard part, I also had to figure out a way to keep the thing from lifting when the kayak sat on the roller part. I figured out that if I made two bars in an "L" shape I could lay this on the top of my camper shell and under the kayak bars. This would keep the pvc base from lifting up when I loaded the kayak onto it. I connected the second set of T joints to the first T joints and glued them but did not add the cross bar yet. Basically the roller part is made up of 1.25" pvc that uses the 3/4" stuff as an axle, its the blue thing in the middle of the picture below. I used two 1.25" couplings and placed them 3" apart to form a type of groove that the kayak would sit into. I also figured I'd have to put some sort of covering on it so the kayak wouldn't get scratched when I rolled it up. I ended up using 1.5" blue flat pool tubing, this was a mistake that I'll have to correct later because the kayak is cutting thru the tubing. It was also hard to slip that stuff over the pvc, I had to use rubbing alcohol to lube it and pull hard, it took about fifteen minutes! |
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I cut the 1.25" pvc to fit over the elbows of the 3/4" pipe and elbows. Remember under that 1.25" is a rod of 3/4" that serves as a axle of the hully roller. Look at the above picture closely, it's actually upside down. The two blue foam pieces on the bottom of the picture sit on top of my camper shell. The two other blue foam pieces on the top of the picture rest on the window of my shell. And the blue thing in the middle is the groove where the 1.25" couplings are spaced out, next to that is the 1.25" pipe. Together these pieces form the hully roller. Ignore that elbow on the top of the pix, that was cuz originally the design was going to be different and once again I modified it all!
I made sure that I glued all the pvc together at the joints and it was finished! It works great I can load up my kayak without having to worry about it falling off and hitting the cars next to me. Chris L. Okamoto OAKPWRD PRODUCTIONS http://oakpwrd.tripod.com >><((((º> >><((((º> |
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