I am trying to design an economical storage rack for kayaks. We'll be stacking the kayaks five high in the rack.

Presently I am looking for something to put on the floor of each storage slot to protect the hulls of the kayak. It has to be tough enough that a 50 pound kayak sliding over it won't destroy it, but most important it has to be inexpensive. The storage slots will be 32 inches wide by 20 feet long.

Recommendations?

tanstaafl.

Plywood? Maybe faced with melamine

Too expensive, not water resistant enough. (It will warp and delaminate in the rainy season)

tanstaafl.

Marine grade plywood then, they make bits of boats and docks out of it.

Marine will be more expensive than standard

Melamine faced probably more expensive than marine

I've seen lots of canoe racks padded with indoor/outdoor carpet.

-jk

How essential is it that you have support along the whole length?
Back in my whitewater days we stored our slalom kayaks (4m long) supported only in two places (about 25-30% in from each end. The supports were floor to ceiling square tubing with horizontal pipes/bars holding the kayaks. On the metal pipes/bars we had ABS? plastic pipes so the kayaks essentially rolled in (Or you could place/remove them sideways as the vertical square tubing at the end of the pipes were removable (locked in place to the top/bottom pieces with padlocks)).
With the side post in place kayaks were locked in since the rack was actually narrower than the middle of the kayaks were wide.


something like that. p=padlock. Top and bottom bolted to roof/floor. Side posts removable once padlocks were unlocked/removed.

We had 2 1/2 of these (the 1/2 one against a wall, the full ones free-standing) 6 kayaks high.

'course, our kayaks were lighter, about 20-30 lbs, and shorter

Is it only sliding surface you're looking for, or structure as well?
Would you need to have the surface the full length or would say a slightly raised surface every foot or so do? Then maybe split plastic pipes convex side up...



Kayaks would only be supported every foot (depending how close you place the half pipes) instead of whole length

Vinyl sheet flooring material (off-cuts!) on top of plywood.

Or if a full "floor" isn't required, then Crazy Carpet like plastic chopped up into strips to cover the tops of the supports.

Important for a couple of reasons.

The kayaks we store are 50--70 pounds, 16--18 feet long, and some of them are rotomolded plastic. In the hot sun (frequently >90F [32C], where the boats rest on supporting bars, the plastic boats take on permanent deformations.

Our current racks are made that way, and load from the sides, and over time the supporting bars bend from the weight of the boats, making it difficult to open/close the side of the rack. These racks are awkward to deal with, and I have designed a different sort of rack (see attached, sorry for the español, the picture is for the welding shop) that I think will be much nicer to deal with. With a maximum lift height of 68" as opposed to the current racks' 96" it should be much easier to access the boats, and even though the racks are not as tall we will be able to store 50% more boats in the same footprint.

For those who don't want to try and translate my amateurish Spanish, here is a brief description. The frame is a combination of square tubing (verticals) and angle iron (horizontals). The "floors" of each slot are chain link fencing welded to the angle iron. The top is curved sheet metal, the sides are chain link welded to the frame. Zip-tied to the chain link on the outside will be breathable tarpaulin. I am looking for something to put onto the chain link floors to protect the hulls of the boats.

It can be really cheap stuff. I'm thinking low-quality linoleum, maybe hall runners, or ??. Durability is not much of a factor -- the heaviest use any of it will see is maybe 100 times per year a boat slides over it; most of them only 10 or 15 times a year. Waterproof is an absolute requirement, the boats go into storage right after the wash rack, and the breathable tarps we will use will allow some water to enter if the wind is blowing from the right direction. The boats themselves are reasonably water resistant.

I am budgeted at about 21 cents per square foot (30 pesos per square meter) for this material. Nothing made of wood will stand up to our weather. Metal is way too costly. That leaves... ??

tanstaafl.

" You do not have access to download this attachment. "

But regardless, I still recommend cheap vinyl sheet flooring material, or even the old kayacker standby: carpet, outdoor carpet that is.

Try it now. Looking at your post time, I bet you tried to open it while I was in the process of deleting the old (wrong) picture and putting in the correct one.

Horrifically expensive, not readily available used. Even the cheap vinyl flooring I've found has been pretty pricey...

tanstaafl.

I would expect the horizontal chain link material to sag between the horizontal crossbar supports. If not right away, then over time as the hulls slide in and out.

So the bulk of the hull weight would be on the intermediate support bars, not widely distributed on the chain mesh.

If the horizontal bars are omitted and the chain link fencing is installed like a hammock (supported down the long sides) then it would hopefully sag in a controlled manner and evenly support the hull weight along the full length.

Or use some sort of tough fabric to create the hammocks, not fencing. Something that would air dry and not have too much sliding friction.

I just occurred to me that plastic 'construction' fencing might be suitable. See photo...

Any of the plastic fabric/mesh options will have a limited working life, especially in hot sun. We use plastic treeguards in the orchard and in the time we've been planting have used all sorts but they all start disintegrating in one way or another after a few years.

Also if it's hot enough to deform the canoes then surely it'll deform any plastic netting?

Did you get pricing on metal? I make stuff out of metal all the time and I find it's competitive with wood and easier to put together (I have 2 welders). All my backyard trellises are thin wall square steel tubing, very strong when all welded together.

They use textilene for outdoor furniture, that might be OK for the hammock idea:

http://www.twitchellcorp.com/index.php?o...&Itemid=175

Probably not cheap though.

Is bamboo cheaply available? An upsized sushi mat strung between the metalwork could do it.

No, sorry, that's buried in the español description, "...tensa y soldados al ángulo de hierro." The chain link is pulled tight and welded to the horizontal angle-iron rails. The transverse crossbars might not even be necessary, but are there to give additional support and to provide additional rigidity to the structure as a whole.

Yes, this is the outside-the-box thinking that I'm looking for. I'll look into it as a cover for the chain link to protect the hulls, rather than as a support for them.

Thank you for that idea.

tanstaafl.

The boats are shielded from UV by a sun-resistant semi-permeable [breathable] tarp over the outside of the rack. These tarps carry a 5-year guarantee and I expect them to last longer than that because they are not under any mechanical stress. The roof of the rack is painted sheet metal and there is some tree shading in our storage location.

The plastic netting (or whatever we end up using) is not supporting the kayaks, it is only there to protect the hulls by keeping them from contacting the metal chain link floors, and to ease the friction of sliding boats in and out.

tanstaafl.

Oh, that's pretty stuff, but I'm pretty much committed to the chain link floors.

Definitely not!

Is bamboo cheaply available? An upsized sushi mat strung between the metalwork could do it. [/quote]The locals use long bamboo poles for knocking fruit off of trees up in the mountains, but I've not seen it in strips for weaving.

tanstaafl.

If you are committed to using tensioned fencing as the support then I suggest the metal crossbars be curved downward in the center or positioned slightly below the level of the mesh so that when the mesh sags the cross bars do not become pressure ridges.

If the cross bars are providing actual load 'support' then the mesh would be not providing evenly distributed support along the kayak length.

I presume the steel structure is to be painted to limit rust. Everywhere there are welds the galvanizing of the fencing mesh will be compromised, and therefore need paint.

Some sort of stubby feet or legs would allow air circulation and reduce rust on the bottom surface of the lowest frame rails.