Prinsu Style Roof Rack - CAD models?

Thank you MESO. Really enjoy working with you! From you social media guy at upTOP.

 

You could likely get a design patent. Which would cover you if anyone stole your specific design. A utility patent for a roof rack would be much more difficult. Utility patent would cover what the part DOES not what it looks like. That is oversimplified, but I hope it helps.

 

@monkeyevil thank you. That does help a lot actually. ill have to look into a design patent. btw you guys over at victory do some great stuff, I've been planning on making some orders from you lately.

 

What I've come up with so far. Needs some tweaking. Used a laser engraver to cut a test piece to check the fit. Its sitting lower than it will when finished but this is a good start.

 

@MESO Thanks brother. Really appreciate it.

As for the other guys in the thread.....I love seeing stuff like this.

@ORNG TACO @bonnfabrication great work guys. Both designs look super functional. The whole point of all of it is to get something on your truck to hold your gear so you can be anywhere on Earth.....OUTDOORS.

upTOP started this exact same way. An idea. Trial and error (lots of error) and some really cool people from Tacoma World.

Love it.

 

@upTOPoverland Thank you, and I won't lie, at more than one point in time I had your web page, prinsu, and victory 4x4 open to try and see how you got around a few things and set it up. Im a big fan of learning from around me. I didnt want to make a copy of the racks that are already out there but something more tailored to my desires and goals. My goal it seemed was similar to you yours in that of keeping it low. the difference was that Im not using an @MESO low profile antenna. so I set up my bars around it and figured out the math to keep them evenly spaced apart. Im not sure how much time that @ORNG TACO has put into his but I know its a lot. and I'm only in the beginning stages of design.

Im about to start helping my brother design a similar rack to mine for his Lexus GX470. so that should be fun. We figured we would get the most of the sheet of aluminum I have.

 

Heck yeah! For the price of aluminum use every square inch and if you come up with a good use for the chips left over I am ALL EARS! Working on the GX470 right now as well. Have a good night brother. Ever need anything I’m around. Micah

 

@upTOPoverland we totally are going to use as much as we can. I'm going to design a few tabs to utilize see quick fist mounts on the back of the last cross bar to hold an axe and shovel. And thanks again. I'll keep it in mind. I'll add some pictures of the GX design to my roof rack build thread later

 

Following

 

Looks good, I'm interested in seeing your finished stuff. I’m pretty new to solidworks, but have been using CAD for years. I work at a custom Fab and Machine shop and I have customers that show up with pictures of things they want made. A huge time saver I use all the time is to trace things - you can literally drag and drop PDFs or photos right into CAD, trace it, locate hole patterns etc, then just scale to a known dimension. It’s amazing how close you can get it, but it really depends on the quality of the picture, and how square/parallel to the item the photo was taken. This would work well to get the actual roofline or any other angles from the truck into AutoCAD.

 

What case are you running up there?

 

It's a 43" Plano that I got from Amazon on sale a while ago.

 

I'm hoping to get the pieces cut out and the start assembly in a few weeks. I need to get the rack for my brothers GX 470 designed and tested then I can get the pieces cut out and welded up. ill be posting pictures up for sure.

 

well its been a while. I got another rack designed for my brothers Lexus GX470 and finally got them both rendered to see if there were any issues in the design before cutting. found one or two and got them fixed. here are a few pics from fusion 360 of mine. let me know what you guys think.

 

that looks excellent

 

Looks great - good work!

 

Thanks guys. I’ve had a few inquiries about production of this. So I need to get on it I guess. I’ll post more pictures after I get it cut out. Hopefully I’ll have it together soon

 

wont you have trouble getting the blessing from toyota to use the "TRD" If i was you i would take that off if you plan on selling.

 

I totally agree. I’m gonna keep it on the one for me and remove it if i do end up selling the design or racks. For kicks and giggles I might email Toyota corporate and see if I can get their blessing on using it

 

Love the design, however, why does every rack seem to go for the exaggerated arch on the fairing? I've always wondered if there were some functional aspect of that feature or if it was merely coincidental.