As of a couple of weeks ago I am a proud kayak owner. I wasn’t exactly in the market for a kayak, I’ve kayaked a couple of times and enjoyed it, but never thought much more about it than that. I do, however, live a couple of blocks from the beach…and I don’t surf…so when I came upon a nice kayak for only $100 at a garage sale, I knew what I had to do.
I haven’t taken it out yet because my paddle hasn’t arrived from Walmart.com yet, and because (until yesterday) I had no way to get it to the beach. I figured I could build my own Kayak cart (damned things are expensive to buy), so I went to a thrift store to see what I might be able to find there with wheels on it…lo and behold, a walker for only $5!
I didn’t know exactly how at the time, but I figured I could make a kayak cart out of it…so here’s what I did.
Parts:
- Walker ($5). This is the tough one and obviously the one that makes this tutorial pretty useless, unless you happen to have one of these sitting around.
- 6′ Luggage Straps, pack of 4 ($7 at home depot)
- Miscellaneous Zip Ties and a couple of 2.5″ bolts ($1)
- x4 Pipe Clamps (not sure if that’s what they’re called, you’ll see in a minute) $6
Step 1: Saw the back two legs off of the walker
Step 2: Using the pipe clamps, fasten the wheels back onto the walker as shown here:
Step 3: Once you’re satisfied that the wheels are on correctly and as straight as you can get them, drill a hole and run a bolt through the two poles so it stays in place
At this point I used some zip ties to clean up the pipe clamp part
Then I used some more zip ties to attach the straps to the frame
And voila, we have an easy $12 kayak cart!
