No. Rigid conduit is either zinc coated, stainless steel, or aluminum. You can get hot dipped galvanized conduit, but thats not what I plan on using. I'll go with the zinc coated. EMT is zinc coated too, but only on the outside. Rigid is coated inside and out. Hopefully I can borrow someones 1" hand bender so I can make this happen. I'd hate to buy one for one use.

 

Hmm.... maybe I'm thinking of something else. I will check when I get home. I'm thinking of the stuff you use for temporary service poles.

 

Rigid is normally used for running wires outside, through walls, underground, etc because its so durable. I worked for a general contractor on a military base and by code, we had to run that for all of those situations. Also, I'm not sure if it's schedule 40 or not, but it's thick enough to be threaded.

 

that looks beef... I might do that so I can put some seats on the roof when I am at the drive in movies

 

I was thinking about the explosion proof stuff we use. I made a brush guard out of that once. Galvanized sickness sucks. I'm on the same page as you are now.

And about the drove in movies...... I'm definitely doing that haha

 

Just thought i would bump this to the top to give people ideas on a cheap, safe strong rack

 

how is the rain lip holding att the weight, i think i missed something

 

I'm also curious about how you mounted it to your gutter, I built a similar rack, although a little lower profile, and had it temporarily mounted on a thule rack while I tried to puzzle out a design - I asked a question about mount design and kind of got hammered about not being in the right forum... So I will repost my question and then duck and run for cover... When I had it loaded - or over loaded - with a couple of elk, it had a tendency to want to slide on my gutters a little bit. I'm trying to come up with a design that will grip the gutters tightly enough that it won't slide...

 

this looks very similar to my design, except mines going to be bigger, 1" square steel tubing. good to know it'll be strong. I'm also using 6 JCR Off-Road gutter mounts instead of 4 mounts. It's not done yet though.

 

I'm planning on building a rack, and I saw another post of a rack with square tubes, made up my mind and I'll do the square tube build also. Tried finding metal at the recycle yard but no go. Gonna have to bite the bulliet and buy new tube. At least new tube will have a better chance of being straight.

 

I made zero mods to the rain gutter itself.

As for the mounting i drilled a hole and had the bottom part angled so that when the bolt was tightened it gripped the rain rail tighter and tighter. (2nd and 3rd pic)

I paid 35 bucks for the tube brand new i think at my local steel yard. Sold it to my buddy for 100 un painted.

 

6 mounts? why? The first one i ever made was 1". 3/4 is just as strong, cheaper, lighter and IMO looks better.

 

How much lighter would the rack with 3/4 tube be over the 1" tube? I was going to build my rack with 1" tube but if the 3/4" is just as good then that might be the way to go.

 

so the rail is holding the weight?

 

The design is generally more important than the material, you can have the worlds strongest material and a poor design and it won't hold much, I used 1/2 EMT in my rack, it was designed to be able to haul lumber for my side jobs

In this picture you can see the front cross bar has been triangulated supported by the two lower cross bars, me and 3 of my coworkers stood front and back on these crossbars with minimal flex.





This rack weighs 25 lbs and the crossbars have supported over 800, just food for thought