How to Build a Kayak Rack
Introduction: How to Build a Kayak Rack
In this post I'm going to show you how to store your kayak. In the last year my family has decided that kayaking is definitely for us. So much so that my wife and I decided to make the investment in everyone in the family owing our own kayaks, which for us means five kayaks. And while kayaks don’t weigh a lot, they can definitely eat up space quickly.
My primary objective with this project was to create a storage rack that allowed me to stack the kayaks up on the garage wall giving me a minimal footprint and to do it in a budget friendly way.
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Supplies
Materials & Supplies* Tools*
(3) 12' 2x4s Miter Saw
(4) 10' 2x4s Table Saw & Crosscut Sled (optional plans on my site)
(2) 10' 4x4s Hammer Drill & Driver Combo
3" Construction Screws Hammer Drill (if fastening to concrete block)
4" Tapcon Concrete Anchors Masonry bit (if fastening to concrete block)
(4) Black Utility Mats Staple Gun
Step 1: Cutting the Parts
The design I settled on used three 12’ 2x4s, four 10’ 2x4s and two 10’ 4x4s. That gave me almost the exact amount of material needed and I ended up with almost no waste. Since I want to store five kayaks I needed 20 pieces in total. Of course you can scale up or down depending on how many kayaks you have. 181
You need two support arms per Kayak.
I chopped all my 2x4s down to length, making 12 of the pieces 36” and 8 of the pieces 32”. The shorter pieces will be used for the smaller kayaks.
I then needed to make some smaller pieces to use as cross braces and I cut these using my crosscut sled at the table saw. This could have been done at the miter saw too if you don’t have a table saw.
I find the crosscut sled to be easier and more accurate when making repeat cuts this small. I needed 30 of these little pieces in all.
Step 2: Assembling the Support Arms
And That’s it for the cutting on this project, all that’s left to do is assemble everything. I need to assemble ten support arms and to do this I placed two boards against one of the 4x4s like this.
I then put one of the cross brace pieces in the middle and clamped the whole thing to the 4x4.
Using 3 inch construction screws I fastened this together.
I then flipped the whole thing over and repeated this process on the other side.
Finally, I added one cross brace approximately in the middle. Doesn’t have to be exact, I just eyeballed it.
The idea here is the support arm will attach to the 4x4 like this and create a tight fit.
I’ll be able to fasten the support arms to the 4x4s on each side as well as in the middle using the cross brace.
I just continued on using this same method until I had 10 total support arms (2 for each kayak).
Step 3: Preparing the Support Posts
Now for the 4x4s I marked out screw locations at 2 ft intervals.
I then marked the center with a center punch.
I used a ¾” forstner bit to countersink a hole halfway through the 4x4.
And then used a ¼” drill bit to drill the rest of the way through. I used a long drill bit because that's what I had lying around, but any drill bit longer than six inches should work.
I made use to knock out all the shavings for a nice clean hole. I did this four times on each 4x4. 56