Stone Soup roof rack

[Doc in AZ]

i can make anything you want with blue prints... or you have to bring me your rig. i normally try to use as many stock components as possible to keep things as cost effective / marketable as possible. on the other hand when i don't have a huge draw for a product it's hard to devote a couple days to engineering something really trick for it. don't get the idea that i only build things "good enough" but i can't charge someone 8 hours labor to design some stanchions. if you guys were interested in a group buy, as always you will get a better price, but then it would warrant designing a mount just for the commander.

good example for me is the rear bumpers... everyone wanted one, everyone had some input and design ideas. i have over 120 hours into the rear bumpers from inception to production... i have sold only 3 and have not even come close to making a profit yet. and now i have requests for the front bumpers coming in day after day and from as far away as australia... but no one has decided to anti up and have me build one. but again, i need to make sure you guys are willing to dish out between $12-1400 for them before i even start trying to put it into production or i'm just wasting my time on a business level.

while the price may seem a little high you should compare mine to the bumpers ross built. nothing against him but they were very thin sheet metal, had weak mounting points and crushed the centre cross member on jon's rig before he ever hit anything. those bumpers are such thin material i can grab the side by the fender flare and pull it away from the body almost an inch... and i'm only 125lbs. and i think those were about a grand.

[Matt]

Hey man, i completely understand. I've been around this stuff long enough to know exactly what you're talking about. For what its worth, I fully intend on having your bumpers some day... but those will have to wait until my kids are out of daycare (or until someone rear ends me and i need a new rear bumper... you'll get an E-mail that day!)

A roof rack however is a bit easier to justify in the mid-term.. hence why i've been very interested in this thread. Reviews of the defender racks have been iffy, and i like to support the "local" businesses as much as i can (my dad is an entrepreneur as well).

In terms of your rack... is it basically designed to mount to standard crossbars with a few U or square bolts? I might pick up some aluminum and make some mounting blocks for my Thule load bars (basically I'll just need slight spacers so I have about 1/2" of clearance at the closest point with the load bars). I wasn't sure if you already created something like this, that's why i asked. They're easy enough for me to make out of some stock material.

If I do a good enough job, i'll send you the drawings in case someone wants a similar set and can't make them.

Edit: and FYI, i'm pretty handy with 3D modeling and designing. So if you need something modeled, say like the roof rack rails or something, shoot me a PM. I could probably get you some professional quality drawings of these parts.

[Matt]

Just curious... what's the expanded steel bottom look like? And what's the standard bottom like? Might try to swing this as an anniversary gift... worst case, Christmas is less than 5 months away

[Doc in AZ]

Expanded steel is that stuff that looks like its sheet metal with diamonds punched out of it... you could google it for a picture too, I'm too lazy to find one and post it, otherwise the bottoms is just one inch tube ever 8 inches or so. I'm going to try and fix the link in my signature but go look at Facebook.com/stonesoupmetalworks

[Matt]

Ah yeah, I got ya.

What size is the rack that was posted in this thread? I'm having trouble deciding between 4x5 or 4x6....

[Doc in AZ]

I would have to look back thru my notes, bit it was as wide as the outside of the stock roof rack rails and about 6 feet long. It was as big as I could make from a single stick of tube.

[Matt]

I was measuring my roof last night and 48" wide (outside) would put the edges even with the inside of the roof rails in the rear, and 72" long would span from the rear of the sun roof to almost the back hatch (I'd need to see if there would be an issue with opening the gate.. maybe 65-68" would be better.

I wouldn't want my rack to be wider than the I side edge of the roof rails, basically for the sake of mounting options but also because I may put extra accessories on the sides that I would like to stay "above" the roof. Looks like 47-48" is the sweet spot.

[LWM]

I think my tray is 76" x 54"

[Matt]

Hey Doc, I shot you a PM looking for a rough quote. I'd want the width (outside measurements) to be 47.5-48" and just have to decide on the length (probably 68-70"... need to measure roof with rear hatch open).

Also, from the picture below its hard to tell if the front goes straight across or if its curved. Did you curve it for aesthetics? I'll probably make a wind deflector out of plexi or something...