Canoe Cradles

Wanting to start the quick refurbishment of the 14ft Chesnut / Peterborough picked up last fall, an essential bit of canoe gear needed to be built...a set of canoe cradles. Mike Elliot has a great writeup of on a sturdy set of cradles in his book and I adapted these to fit my needs. A tiny backyard and no garage for storage meant I wanted something a bit more compact and somewhat collapsible.

Canadian Tire sells a neat metal sawhorse which occasionally go on massive sale. Picked mine up for $8.99 each - a real bargain given the usage they've seen for other projects. The legs collapse neatly under the top and a convenient carrying handle allows these to be easily transported and stored.

Mastercraft folding metal sawhorse

With the sawhorses used as the bottom half, scrap 2x4 were cut up and mounted on the top of the sawhorse. Some extra bit of canvas from the tarp project last summer was used as the cradle material and just stapled into the wood as an inelegant but functional temporary solution.

In the end they work well and the legs can be partially folded for better storage discreetly behind the cedar trees in the yard. Work on the canoe could finally begin!