Introduction: Making a PVC Kayak Cart - DIY

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About: I am an obsessed DIYer, Woodworker, and home flipper. I am not a professional or have any training, so I just pick the project I want to tackle and figure it out step by step. I picked up my first project at…

Welcome to another one of my Instructables! This one is all about making this plastic PVC Kayak Cart.

Sure, Winter is coming, but Kayaking is miserable no matter when you do it, don't let the weather stop you!

All jokes aside, here is the Kayak Cart DIY tutorial.

For the full length video from my YouTube channel - click HERE

Thanks!

Supplies

2 Rubber Wheels

PVC Glue

Miter Saw or Hand Saw

Measuring Tape

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

This cart consists of 3/4" PVC and 5/8" Axle and metal pieces.

PVC 3/4":

  • 7 PVC T's
  • 7 PVC Caps
  • 8' PVC Pipe (you don't need all of it)

Axle 5/8":

  • Threaded 5/8" rod
  • 4 Flat Washers
  • 2 Split Lock Washers
  • 2 Lock Nuts
  • 2 Hex Nuts

Then your 2 wheels of course.

Step 2: Cut the Pipe

You can make all your cuts up front so you don't have to worry about using the saw again for the rest of this project.

  • (4) of the 8" cuts
  • (2) of the 5" cuts
  • (2) of the 4" cuts
  • (4) of the 3" cuts
  • (1) of the 18" cuts
  • (1) of the 11 1/4" cuts

Step 3: Assemble

I assembled mine into sections.

  • Start with two of the 8" pieces and glue them onto the opposing ends of a T.
    • Do this twice
  • Then assemble the middle section or the "H" section. Use the 11 1/4" piece and glue it to the middle of a T piece. On top and bottom of the H ends, glue on the 3" pieces to the remaining holes in the T's
  • Last section is the axle casing. The best way to describe this is in the image labeled with numbers and letters. The numbers are the inches of the PVC. 4" T 5" T 5" T 4"
    • It's really important to make the middle T facing straight outward. This is your kickstand.

Now you can leave it like this so you can detach it and carry this onto the kayak with you, OR, like in my case, I glued up the rest of it because I'll be leaving my cart on shore.

Just glue the H section to the Axle Casing. Then glue the 2 kayak brace pieces onto the top of the H.

Last is the little kick stand that you will glue onto the middle T from the axle casing.

Step 4: Axle Casing

The rest of this project has to do with the axle casing.

With 2 of the caps, drill out a 5/8" hole so it will fit the threaded rod.

Once complete - push through the rod.

Step 5: Threaded Rod

For the rod, I fit all of the pieces onto 1 end of the rod so I can see how much rod I actually need and then cut off all of the extra.

A cool tip here is to have a nut twisted on near the cut off so when you cut the rod, you can unscrew the nut from that end and it will straighten out the threads. Otherwise you will have a lot of trouble screwing on the nuts later on from that end.

The order goes like this, starting from outside:

Lock Nut > Flat Washer > Wheel > Flat Washer > Hex Nut > Lock Nut > Cart

Step 6: Paint and Put on the Noodles

Last couple of steps are just as the title says, spray paint, clear coat spray a protective finish, and then put on the noodles.

Step 7: Bungie Up and Tow

This is my second cart and the one thing I learned from the first one is that a bungie or some type of strapping is really important so this doesn't fall off.

While the noodles help grip the kayak a little bit, after a few weeks in the sun, they get hard and have less of a grip. I just wrap bungies around my axle casing and run it up to my kayak handles but you can do this an unlimited amount of different ways.

Thank you all so much for checking this out! I have a complete video of this project on my YouTube channel that you can view HERE. Just make sure you subscribe as a free way to support what I'm doing :)

Thanks!