Three Yaks and a Rack!

way back when.....most of us did not want to spend the $$ for a Wheeleez WZ1-BCF Folding Beach Cart, so many of us built many different versions of the beach cart - most of which were made with PVC and guess what? Most of 'em broke down eventually. I can't even imagine the weight of 3 kayaks (about 60 pounds a piece) strapped on to PVC and bouncing around on the bed of a pick-up truck. IMO, a disaster waiting to happen

All the homemade carts Ive seen so far are made from PVC thats like 1inch. Yea that has to fail somewhere. Then again they are carted over rough terrain torquing the frame of the cart to the point that the joints fail. Agreed that PVC will break down when exposed to UV but thats over a long period of time. I still believe it would work. Winter experiment time I guess you nay sayers.

Be sure to post progress pics 

No freakin way on the PVC for me - aluminum would be great. I'll bet Andy could whip up a kick-*ss version with some round tube and uni-strut!

Imagine driving for a few hours in high wind conditions on the open freeway.....as soon as the PVC flexes here and there.....SNAP!!! Kayaks are now bouncing on to the freeway and into incoming traffic    Cars swerve here and there. Accidents happen and people get hurt (or possibly perish). Then ask yourself, Was it worth it?

I truly hope that whoever posted this kayak rack design will prove us wrong. The guy (who has 15 posts) did mention that it was a "prototype and can still use some improvements"

I hope he does a lot of test runs before someone else follows his lead.

You could make that thing out of unistrut and conduit super cheap and it would hold up good.  Mooch nailed it with the vibrations on the road.  With that weight the vibrations will get worse and worse..........then plastic shrapnel!!!

I know that PVC alone will break but what about the Polyurea coating? 

It looks like its just an epoxy top coating, unless there was a composite fiber somewhere in the ingredients list I'd say the structure would still not last.  On a side note, for what you'd pay for the coating you could probably have a welder build you a steel rack.   

I am not familiar with Polyurea, however after watching the video it should work. If you have the polyurea spraying equipment laying around or easy access to it then go for it. If you don't then it defiantly looks like an expensive process. If I am going to spend money I would want it to look better then plastic coated PVC.

I still don't think it would stop it from flexing. But I would like to do my truck.

Thanks, everyone for their input.