Accessory mounting board for slide tracks

11/4/2014

Slide tracks can be fitted to many kayaks for mounting various accessories onto. The RTM Abaco 4.20 luxe comes with slide rails factory fitted either side of the footwell. Some accessories such as the Yak Attack screw balls or purpose made Ram ball slide track mounts will fit directly to the rails. I was planning to mount a scotty base onto the slide track but wanted a solid board on which to attach it to. Slide track mounting boards can be purchased but seem very expensive for what looks like a simple strip of plastic so i planned on making my own.

I started by cutting out a section of 6mm thick chopping board of the same width as the scotty base but around 2 inches longer than its width. All edges were ground smooth.

Holes were marked out and drilled for attaching the base. The bottom of the mounting board must be flat so that it sits flush on the slide track and kayak thus giving maximum support and stability. This means that the nuts to which the base will bolted too must be countersunk into the plastic. To achieve this i threaded a marine grade stainless steel nyloc bolt onto an M5 bolt of the same material and heated this using a lighter up until the nylon ring melted. Gloves are a must here, the bolt and nut get very hot. I then unthreaded the bolt and threaded it on again but backwards as in the photo below - melting the nylon ring in the previous step makes this step easier.

The bolt is then heated up again until its red hot and then pushed into the chopping board until it melts itself flush into the board - The bolt leaves the hole clear for threading again from the other direction when it comes to attaching the scotty base. Once in position plunge into cold water to solidify the plastic, fixing the bolt in place. The bolt can then be unscrewed and any excess plastic ground or filed away. Repeat 4 times. It's fiddly and there is a knack to it but the finished result looks good.

The bolts are cut down to size so that they do not protrude from the nut when in place. The scotty base was attached and placed onto the slide rail to mark out where holes must be drilled for the handled bolts to pass through to fix the complete board to the slide track. As an after thought i also drilled two more holes and countersunk bolts as above to use as a place to store the handled bolts when the board is not in use - the bolted holes are just visible in the photo below.

The mount board can now be placed on the kayak, the handled bolts cut to size and then used to tighten the board down against the kayak and slide track when passed through the unbolted holes and into the threaded brass sliding squares located in the slide track of the Abaco. Once tightened down the board is solid. The scotty base will take many kayak fishing accessories and i will be using mine to fit a Scotty Rodmaster 2 adjustable rod holder that will hold my extendable gopro/camera pole which i have modified to fit into the rod holder. It provides ample support for both my camera pole at full extension and a fishing rod. Lightly loosening the bolts allows the whole board to easily be moved into which ever position i desire. This design could easily be adapted to make a mounting plate for a ram ball, camera mount or fish finder base too and have used a similar method to create a backing plate for a ram ball on which i mount my fish finder.