Machining Roof Bar Mounts for my Ambulance

21 May 2025

I wanted a way to mount my canoe on my ambulance camper and I already had a pair of Yakima round bars but no way to mount them to the existing hard points on the roof. I whipped up a clamp that could mount the bars to the roof in Fusion and machined it on my Tormach PCNC440.

A trick I like doing for flat parts is skipping a second setup and saving stock by just machining the first op on the end face of a big piece of bar stock: Part in milling machine

Afterwards I throw it in my AF50 bandsaw and slice the part off from the bar stock like a piece of bread. The AF50 makes such straight cuts that the part comes out almost perfectly flat and the stock is ready right away to make another part. Part in bandsaw

I also used the AF50 to make a relief cut into the part so that it could clamp onto my Yakima roof bars: Finished part

Finished part holding the roof bars onto the ambulance: Finished part

Finished part

Crappy home-built canoe matches my crappy home-built camper 😁 Canoe mounted on camper