I am at the stage that I must decide between 2 campers. One is a QS 8.1. The other is not.
I am wondering if anyone sells, or has made, a roof rack for the QS???? The Coleman Colorado (soft top) had one available.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/cobra5laddict/childrensmuseum8-5-08051.jpg)It would be great to bring my canoe and/or kayaks.
I'm currently in planning stages on a rack on my quicksilver 10.0 I'm not entirely sure how it will be done, but I have a general idea, I just need to find some aluminum squares, pins, etc and learn how to weld or find a friend who will do it for beer.
I am interested in seeing your ideas. I've also been pondering this for the past year to be able to strap bikes and a kayak to the top. The simplest ideas I've seen involve 2x6 boards strapped down to the top with padding under the wood. The needed accessories are attached to the wood (fork mounts, Yakima bars, hull pads, etc). I'd like to find a more elegant solution using aluminum, but I'm scared to mod too much and screw it up.
I will have a definite idea/plan in a few weeks (first week of June is my goal) and hopefully something will form by then.
my rack that I plan to build will carry 3 kid bikes and a car cargo carrier (decided that we will not bring the wife and my bike if there is no room)
I'm not sure if I should upgrade my axel to allow the more weight to be carried, I need to find a scale and see how much the extra stuff weighs.
I started planning an elaborate setup for a roof rack when i first purchased my 10.0. In the end I went with the simplest option by using a couple of universal roof rack bars like these: http://www.walmart.com/ip/37391583?wmlspartner=wlpa&adid=22222222227025076107&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=52594183871&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=84475535351&veh=sem
I fount that I could use a long ratchet strap that goes through the bars themselves and attaches to the frame of the trailer. My only concern was that all the weight of whatever I put on them would be concentrated on the 4 contact points for the feet. On my first test run we had two kayaks loaded on top, one was a 12 foot Old Town and the other was a no name brand 10 foot. There was no issue at all with the weight or contact points, however in the future I could see adding a couple of 1x6 boards under the feet to help spread out the load.
In short, I liked the simplicity of the universal bars. They allow me to add everything from a roof top box, to kayaks. With a little more tweaking you could even use them as a base for a bike rack.
Here is a picture of it loaded with kayaks:
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3843/14340830894_21f752d109_h.jpg)
(https://flic.kr/p/nRfvp5)20140523_075805 (https://flic.kr/p/nRfvp5) by Sean_NC Camper (https://www.flickr.com/photos/52403555@N05/), on Flickr