If you drive an old beater like mine with rain gutter, check out the local bike swap meet. A lot of bikers use fancy roof rack system. When they change their car, they sold their gutter rack dirt cheap. I bought my Thule in a swap for $35, complete with one set of bike clamp and wheel setup. Can't beat that for something that costed the gut $200 2 years ago.

: I am starting to think about a roof rack to carry my kayak. It looks like it
: could cost $200 and I would still have to customize it somewhat. Has
: anyone built the whole thing out of wood? Maybe oak or ash. What I am
: wondering is how a roof rack is fastened to a car roof? Is it something
: like a dry wall bolt that springs out when you push it through the drilled
: car roof hole?

: I have another question. I have a scanner that I have never been able to get
: to work and so it has been gathering dust. I wanted to post the picture of
: the kayak yoke plans that Ken Sutherland sent to me from Canada but the
: scanner reads picture and line drawings and puts in scattered numbers of
: different sizes in their place, but it will read and print text. Any
: ideas?

: John