Arkansas Canoe Club Forums

I have the OEM rack and cross bars on my Expedition. It works fine, but I've discovered the canoe is rubbing the coating off the bars and causing black marks on the gunwales. I just finished sanding and oiling them, so I'd like to keep them looking nice for a while. Does anyone have any recommendations for something kind of soft but durable I could use to wrap my cross bars? I tried some Gorilla tape, but I don't think it will last that long, and Mrs. Deuce thinks it looks too ghetto. Ideally I'd like to have something kind of soft for boats and other stuff I put up there to kind of settle into.

Luke,

I've tried various things over the years to pad the square tubing bars my truck rack is made of. First thing I
did was to custom cut lengths of clear-core black polyethylene pipe to cover the top and sides of the racks. That looked pretty neat and resisted the wear of sliding boats pretty well for several years but certainly needs replacing now.
The next re-dress was floam pipe insulation wrapped with duct tape, that's easy on the boats but looks pretty tacky and
really easily damaged by boats as heavy as my canoe.
Over the years I've thought about trying to obtain some Delron (white industrial, abrasive-resistant plastic) Back in the seventies I worked for a steel fab. co. that built sawmill equipment, they used sheets of 1/4" - 1/2" Delron to line
various troughs to keep the conveyer chains from eating the steel up. At any rate, haven't tried this approach yet but whenever I replace my current truck, I think I'll start over with a new rack as well, and maybe more forethought on the
rack covering.

Best Regards
Jim

Might try some clear poly tubing. Home Depot and Lowe's will have it up to about 2" I. D. in the plumbing department. Good, heavy duty, lasts forever and is a slight bit "tacky", if you will, so boats don't really slide around on it. A plus for me! Won't leave marks either.
Just split/cut it length wise and zip tie it to your rack. I pop rivoted it to the rack I made for my truck but doubt you'd want to drill holes in your factory rack...

Try NRS. Look under racks. I just bought a pair but haven't tried them yet. More expensive than tape but look good and easy to put on.Built out of the same stuff Jim was talking about. ann D

Just found these. http://www.amazon.com/DaKine-Aero-Rack- ... +rack+pads" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; They're only eighteen inches long, but I can get two sets and just space them to fit. Forty bucks and free shipping. They're meant for surfboards, not canoes, so don't tell anyone brah.

Luke,

I took a look at the aero-pads on the web site you indicated. They look like the ones Marlo and I bought for
the racks on our cars. We bought them at OOO, one set of4 @18" length Yakama brand, and one set of 4 @ 30" length
OOO Logo/ brand. These are fine for the cars, where the vehicle height is low enough we are just setting a boat on them. But for my truck rack, I still favor something plastic, like pipe. The truck rack is tall enough that I'm always starting one end of the boat on the back, then shoveing it forward, the foam just dosen't stand the abrasion for long.
I hope the pads work well for you.

Best Regards
Jim

Just recently, I have purchased a few swimming noodles and split them length wise to fit over the cross bars. My daughter has created a neat covering (sleeve) made of nylon & velcro for a tight fit over the noodle with draw strings on the ends. The prototype looks good, now if I can just get her to finish them.
Tim

Have you tried tennis racquet handle grip tape? Or grip tape for fishing rods? Soft flexible and holds up to many hours of abrasive human hands.

After reading Jim's last post I decided the pads wouldn't work after all. I kind of forgot about it until I was in Lowe's last night and ran across these. http://www.lowes.com/pd_302941-81-75556 ... facetInfo=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I was able to do the entire job with two of them and a little over half a roll of black Gorilla Tape. They're exactly the feel and thickness I had in mind and should give the boat something soft to kind of settle into, which will hopefully reduce boat movement on the interstate and protect the gunwales. Time will tell how it holds up, but at a total cost of less than a ten spot it was worth a shot. I slit each one lengthways and was able to cover each bar with only one tread. I secured them by wrapping Gorilla Tape around them every six inches or so, then I ran a lengthwise piece of tape along the bottom to cover the gap underneath. Looks southern engineered, but not too bad. Don't think Mrs. Deuce has seen it yet.