Project: Roof-rack 0.1

This week, well actually Saturday, I started work on a roof-rack for my car. The main purpose of it will be to carry my bike, but that doesn't mean it can't be useful for hauling other stuff! It's taking me a little longer than I thought it would, but that's mainly to do with the fact that I'm using an ancient stick welder. Boy, it sure is easy to get spoiled using a MIG welder!

I fumbled around a lot with while trying to weld the small pieces, but after going through a number of welding rods and a process of weld/cut/grind I finally started getting something that I was halfway pleased with. Trying to measure rain-gutters on a car is always pretty hard and this time was no different. It's a good thing that the back of the car is a few millimeters narrower than the front. I tweaked everything out as much as I could and it just fit. Now I've got to do the one for the front, but I've got a kind of guide to run off of now.

The whole mounting part of the rack was the hardest to get right, but I think it will be worth it. After I went out and tried it out on the car, I noticed that the design works as a kind of anti-theft system. This will be great and will keep me from worrying about someone just walking off with my new rack.

Hopefully I'll get the rack done sometime soon. I've been invited to go riding in Trencin, which I'd like to do, but right now I don't have a way to get my bike there (without riding it). I'll make an update once I get the other part of the rack finished, and then, to top it off, I'll get some pictures of it on the car and in use (of course not while I'm driving!).

I've also been working on a few other things, just trying to get ready for when we start work in the building here. The largest part of this is moving things that will be in the way, and the biggest problem is finding a place to put the things. Here's where learning how to pack the bays in a Greyhound comes into practice!