Pioneer Tool Rack Machete Mounting Brackets
Posted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 10:43 am
I completed a little project born of mild annoyance and boredom this weekend (I'm not a football guy, so the Superbowl isn't a concern) that I thought others who live in brushy areas might find of interest.
When out in the woods, in the area where I live, you occasionally find logs and branches across the road, or big rocks to be moved. A chainsaw and the winch take care of those problems. Far more often you will encounter "brush" (hawthorn, blackberrys, vine maples, etc.) obscuring a road. This usually means digging a machete out from under the passenger's seat. The machete seems to be used at least 10 times more often than the shovel, axe, and especially, the pick.
So each time I need the machete, I have to make people get out, remove the seat, dig around and get the machete; it annoys everyone. Not a lot, but no annoyance would be better.
Looking at the pioneer racks, I've noticed a big open space at the top which just looks to me like it needs to be filled. I started to wonder if that open space would be a good place to mount a machete, so I wouldn't have to dig around under the passenger seat when we are out in the woods.
NB: I've added a rack to the back of my M101A1 trailer. You can never have too many tools. It also gives more people the opportunity to experience some of the "fun" aspects of 4 wheeling! The same installation is on the pioneer rack on the tailgate of my truck. It was just easier to take pictures of the rack on the trailer.
The result of all this is below. It looks to me like a "command discretion" kind of addition you might find in a jungle area (like the Delta of VN where the 9th Inf was - my truck is marked as 9th Inf). You can still get all the tools out without removing the machete, and you can get the machete out without removing the tools.
Here is a photo of the brackets mounted to the pioneer rack. One hole for each bracket had to be drilled into the top horizontal flange of the rack. It's easily fixed if someone wanted to remove the brackets in the future,
Here is a photo of the bracket with the 1" strap through it. You can see the angle (60 degrees) of the the bracket bend.
Here's two photos of the raw bracket. I made them from some 0.125 stock I had laying around. 0.0625 or even 0.040 would probably work much better. I just used what I had.
When out in the woods, in the area where I live, you occasionally find logs and branches across the road, or big rocks to be moved. A chainsaw and the winch take care of those problems. Far more often you will encounter "brush" (hawthorn, blackberrys, vine maples, etc.) obscuring a road. This usually means digging a machete out from under the passenger's seat. The machete seems to be used at least 10 times more often than the shovel, axe, and especially, the pick.
So each time I need the machete, I have to make people get out, remove the seat, dig around and get the machete; it annoys everyone. Not a lot, but no annoyance would be better.
Looking at the pioneer racks, I've noticed a big open space at the top which just looks to me like it needs to be filled. I started to wonder if that open space would be a good place to mount a machete, so I wouldn't have to dig around under the passenger seat when we are out in the woods.
NB: I've added a rack to the back of my M101A1 trailer. You can never have too many tools. It also gives more people the opportunity to experience some of the "fun" aspects of 4 wheeling! The same installation is on the pioneer rack on the tailgate of my truck. It was just easier to take pictures of the rack on the trailer.
The result of all this is below. It looks to me like a "command discretion" kind of addition you might find in a jungle area (like the Delta of VN where the 9th Inf was - my truck is marked as 9th Inf). You can still get all the tools out without removing the machete, and you can get the machete out without removing the tools.
Here is a photo of the brackets mounted to the pioneer rack. One hole for each bracket had to be drilled into the top horizontal flange of the rack. It's easily fixed if someone wanted to remove the brackets in the future,
Here is a photo of the bracket with the 1" strap through it. You can see the angle (60 degrees) of the the bracket bend.
Here's two photos of the raw bracket. I made them from some 0.125 stock I had laying around. 0.0625 or even 0.040 would probably work much better. I just used what I had.
