Re: Making a mold.. kinda

Posted by Aaron J. on Jan 17, 2005

I got the thinking about this and I don't think I need to contour a fiberglass peice.

I picked up the wheels at Harbor Frieght which looks to be their normal price. They are rated for 300Lb acording to the side wall. Not sure what the PSI was. 5/8th pipe seems to be the right fit for the bearing in the center.

I got a peice of 5/8th steel at Lowes today but I'm not sure if I want to use it as its rather heavy. Tubing would work much better.

I think I can just bend a small yoke shape in the center to contour the keel line and I think it will hold on to the boat fine.

I will probably move it back some as the axel will only be sitting 5" off the ground. I preffer higher but oh well. Anyway if you have the axel centered on the boat for instance and raise the front a foot to get a hold on it you'd drop the back a foot as well so it would hit the ground. Pushing the wheels further back gives me more wieght to lift but keeps it from hitting the ground in the back.

McMaster Carr has some pipe insulation for dirt cheap that I can get for padding to keep the paint safe.

To turn this into a cart for the beach or camping I think have a peice of pipe (probably use metal electical conduit) and bend the front part in sort of a question mark shape or really more of a 7 shape and slap on a rubber grip from McMaster. The pipe will run under the length of the cart bed which will add some strength and then at the back end I will bend it down some so its kine of like

'''''''''''''\___

This will give me a slot formed between the bottom side of the cart bed and the pipe. My yoke part on my axel will slide in here and then hopefully I can just use my webbing strap to keep it attached then although it may need some bolts at the sides to keep the axel from swiveling back and forth.

I'm toying with the idea of making the bed out of E-Glass and vacuum bagging it to make it super light. This will give me some practice with the vacuum bagging before I start making my own paddle blades.

I already have a vacuum I made out of a fridge compressor for another project that will pull a full 30" of Hg easy so all I should need is the bag, the release plastic, the perforatied layer and the absorbant layer from what I can recall about doing it.

Still not sure it will be worth the trouble though as it would be far eaiser to find a cardboard box the right size and put some plastic over it and then fiberglass the top and down part of the sides to give me a wagon bed shape.

I will have to get the canoe cart part working before I can make final decisions on the wagon portion.

In Response to: Re: Making a mold.. kinda by Mark Camp on Jan 17, 2005

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