I have 3" steel grid under most of the boat. I'm adding 1" bar channel on each side of the grid to stiffen it. I think the grid is powder coated and I'm not looking forward to cleaning that off prior to welding. Hopefully the grid will protect the boat from most road debris.
Yesterday I made some adjustable hardware to mount the pvc to the grid. I went with 11.5" on center for pvc spacing and can adjust from there.
I still have a lot of drilling and de-burring to do but will post a picture later.
- Chris
Update:
Pictures of hardware I made to mount pvc pipe to unistrut. I used 1"x 3/16" angle iron cut 2" long to span the unistrut. 1/8" angle would be fine too but I already had a lot of 3/16". The bolt through the pvc is 1/4" and I just set the pvc between the installed brackets and drilled through from either side. The unistrut bolts and nuts are 3/8" that I already had or I would have used 1/4" here also. The extra 1/4" hole in the angle iron is just to make the bracket universal for left or right.
The brackets will be mounted to 20" long pieces of unistrut that will bolt onto the grid on the trailer with a clamping bar on the far side.
- C