I built a wooden roof rack for my wife's Honda. It works great. I don't have a picture; let me see if I can describe it. For the two crossbars I took a 2 x 4 and ripped it. I made the cuts at a little bit of an angle: the cross sections of the two crossbars look like trapezoids with the wide part facing up. I wrapped them in leftover fiberglass and epoxy to give them extra strength.

They fit into two other wooden pieces which run lengthwise on both sides of the Honda's roof. The lengthwise pieces only touch the roof under the cross pieces. I cut up some foam padding and contact-cemented it to the wood.

The key to the whole thing is the hardware I use to attach the rack to the car. I bought some steel stock from the local hardward store. I don't know exactly what thickness. 1/16th of an inch maybe - thin enough so I could put it into a vise and pound it into the bend I wanted, but strong enough so there's no chance of it coming unbent when I torque the rack to the car. I looked at the edge of the roof over the doors and bent the metal into a modified S shape which would grab the roof-edge sufficiently and not get in the way of opening the door. Try it, it isn't that hard. On the other end I bent it at a 90 degree angle. I drilled a hole through that "flange". Then, with the rack in place and the metal piece in place (held there by my left hand) I took a long (10-inch) drill bit - 1/4 inch I think - and drilled up into the long wooden piece - the one parallel to the car's long axis. The hole will naturally be at an angle - not perpendicular to the wood's surface, but that's okay. Then, on the side of the wood where the drill came out I chiselled out a little pocket so there would be room for a washer that would rest on the wood all the way around. Then it was a simple matter of putting a 1/4 inch bolt all the way through and tightening down, with a lock washer and some Loctite for good measure. The thing works beautifully. The wood with the fiberglass is way strong - it holds my two plastic boats easily. The hardware holding the rack to the car is also very strong.

The whole thing cost me under $10. All I paid for was the metal stock, bolts, and washers. I had the 2/4's and leftover fiberglass and epoxy from the kayak I built.