Bobsled Questions

George, yes it looks worthwhile. I am more concerned about how low the underside of your roll and bunk will be. You may find you end up “plowing” a lot of snow, at least at first. It may also reduce your clearance for other variations in terrain. These will not be limiting though, just things to work around. I might consider moving the roll up on top of the runners, and welding in another block between the runner and your bunk.

12″ off the ground is an ok height, but I like 18″ better.

Hitching the evener to the pole will put a lot of “responsibility” on the pole to turn that sled under the load. Hitching to the roll directly, or at least welding the hitch to the receiver will be better. In my mind the pole is not a lever, it should float between the horses when they are turning a sled.

The sled looks long enough, but the bunk should be located at about 2/3 length back from the roll. Maybe weld your bunk on in front of where the pipe goes across now. It won’t be a huge problem, but a load on the sled will probably let the horses lift the front of the sled up a little too high, moving your line of draft back farther. They should be able to lift the front of the sled, but there should be enough weight directly down on the front of the sled so that the angle of draft remains the same.

My experience is that 3/4″ pipe is entirely inadequate for securing logs. I would go more like 3-4″. Even 3-4″ pipe sockets to stick wooden stakes in.

My only other observation would be that I don’t like steel sleds because the welds make everything too rigid. With wooden sleds, reinforced with steel, there is always a little shuck here and there which helps when moving heavy loads on variable terrain. But of coarse I am more of a wood worker, and don’t have the metal-working skills that you demonstrate.

Go for it, Carl

i can’t say anything about steel bobsleds, but what george has was welded up to move 4′ wood behind a crawler tractor. it did its job cause no one looked back. carl is right. it was heavy, went right to the bottom, pushed snow ahead of it, and couldn’t track. but who cares with a bulldozer. it had a set of runners that trailed on the ground that held your wood. i tried to make one work once. maine was full of them. the horses hated it, and so did i. it slid sideways and barked trees. the only thing you could say good about it was it didn’t rot. a bobsled with moccasin runners floats in the snow, sometimes higher than the horses. its light in draft and tracks well and spins on a dime. much easier on the horses. carls right about the pole to. i think you are trying to pull the pole that is pulling the sleds that are pulling your log. hook your horses as close to your load as the sleds let you. that said, that is only my experience. you should have your own. we could talk about it later

No plans that I know of. I have a couple of these sleighs and P-L has one. LF