Mount your off-road shovel on your roof rack without using up valuable space
Shovel, Oar, Root Cutter, Zombie Decapitator, Murder Spork
Whatever you call it, you need it to be pretty handy; however, it gets extra dirty so you don't want to keep it on the inside of your vehicle. And, if it's the best gravel shovel you've ever had, it wasn't cheap and you don't want to lose it.
Update: If you're looking for the shovel shown, it's the Krazy Beaver Shovel.
Parts
Wanting my shovel to be handy but secure, I went with a combination of mounting clamps, conduit clamps, and stop nuts. To minimize the scuffing of the rack's paint, I used marine weather stripping.
- Quick Fist Mounting Clamps
- Conduit clamps, cable clamps, or pipe clamps
See below for sizing ideas. - Weather stripping
19/32(~1/2)" x 5/16(~1/4)" fit my conduit clamps well. - Stop Nuts and bolts
- Padlock and/or Gun lock
Note: I also looked at ground clamps. Those things are mean looking and, while I don't doubt they'd work well, they are a bit pricey.
Sizing for the Clamps
You can try to eye the diameter like a lot of people do with a typical metal tape measure but I prefer to wrap a flexible tape measure around the tube and measure the circumference. I know you don't need me to do your algebra for you but, if you just want to double check the math you came up with:
2πr (radius) = πD (Diameter) = C (your Circumference)
D = C/π
Luckily, the conduit clamps give you a lot of room for error so you just need to be in the ballpark.
Stop Nuts
Generally, conduit clamps come with a carriage bolt which is great but a nut that might not hold up to off-road vibration--typical conduit applications aren't mobile. Find yourself some stop nuts at the hardware store that fit these bolts. I like the nylon insert nuts but there are a lot of options.
Assembly
This part is pretty intuitive but I'll throw out some general advice:
- Use a generous amount of the weather seal on the inside of the clamps attaching the seal to the clamp--not the tube.
- Again, use stop nuts. We don't want to lose anything on the trail.
- I recommend the use of a padlock or gun lock not just to deter would be thieves but for that added security that, if anything else fails, the shovel will not be lost.
- When locking, if your shovel disassembles, consider how many sections/pieces are necessary to secure.
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