Surprisingly, I was actually able to reach my goal stopping point on a build in the allotment of time I estimated! With a little assistance from my Dad during the waning hours of daylight, I ended up packing it in well after night fall, and just minutes before the rain started.
The Tacoma Rack was a sort of shotgun project with little planning other than a napkin sketch from just about a week ago. The primary aesthetic was to be determined by the type of wood I would be able to salvage from the property. I was pleased to find a few old barn beams roughly the same dimensions and I began leaning towards the clear sealant timber-framed look.
After fully assembling the frame it was clear that the clear sealant would be a difficult decision as there were many varying ages and qualities of wood pulled together for the final product. Currently I am researching a few methods and products of spray applied bed lining for a final surface coat. But I didn’t want to get the old beams wet until they were sealed with something.
The remainder of this week I plan to sand, prime, and finish the lumber to hopefully have it completed by next week. As long as it was fully assembled on the truck though, I couldn’t resist trying it out. I was relieved to find that two full kayaks are capable of laying flat side-by-side, and the big 29er still fits on the bed mounts without a problem.
Of course to fully understand the load carrying capabilities I had to crawl up there myself and see how it felt…
…a bit high, but with the addition of a sheet of 4′ x 8′ plywood it would work nicely as a sleeping platform.
One last exciting recent development, crawling around in the rafters of the barns this weekend searching for quality lumber, I managed to pull down an old push reel mower that has been stored up in the rafters for as long as I can remember. I was pleased to discover it still worked quite well and will work great for the .12 acre lot our future home sits on.
