Removable seats for a sled (or pung)

[near horse]

I’m still hanging onto this bobsled thread and recently visited a neighbor who has a sled (or as Mitch pointed out – a pung – I like that) gear like mine with a pretty nice box on it with a seat for the driver and bench seating along the sides. But, upon further investigation, I noticed that the bench seats could be removed as they actually were built as one piece (per side) that had “brackets” to allow it to slip on over the box’s side panels. Of course there were angled supports under the bench so all the weight wasn’t torquing the side boards so much but in short order you could switch from hauling hay or what have you in the box, to taking folks for the sleigh ride.

Perhaps I’m easily impressed but I thought it was neat.

[LostFarmer]

I have seen a box that the seats folded against the sides. You raised them up and a leg folded down. It worked great.

[mitchmaine]

hey geoff,
sleds i’ve seen had the sideboards you mentioned, about two planks high. and the seats were planks laid over the top sideways, like thwarts in a boat. everybody sat looking frontwards.
the thing that made the pung was gthe height of the front runners. turned up square to the ground as much as a foot and a half, with the shafts on a roll at the top of the runners. the tree was bolted through a cross member in the shafts with a forked rod connecting the single tree to the front bunk.
i think pung is an indian word. a shortened version of tobbogan. something like that.

mitch

[Anonymous]

@mitchmaine 23789 wrote:

hey geoff,
sleds i’ve seen had the sideboards you mentioned, about two planks high. and the seats were planks laid over the top sideways, like thwarts in a boat. everybody sat looking frontwards.
the thing that made the pung was gthe height of the front runners. turned up square to the ground as much as a foot and a half, with the shafts on a roll at the top of the runners. the tree was bolted through a cross member in the shafts with a forked rod connecting the single tree to the front bunk.
i think pung is an indian word. a shortened version of tobbogan. something like that.

mitch

Hi — my first post. I made a simple box sled for hauling buckets of corn to my cows, but I’m pulling it with chain traces from a metal single tree I found. I don’t know how to attach shafts — sleds are rare in N.D. — as are any single horse use, and I’ve never even seen one up close. Looking for basic pictures — would love to build a more elaborate pung (like one I’ve seen recently on Ebay). I don’t know why shafts don’t break when attached to non-fifth wheel units.

[mitchmaine]

hi muletrack, i always wondered the same thing about a pole. lot of torque there swinging any weight on 8′ fixed runners. act of faith i guess, cause it always seems to work.
the shafts came back and wrapped with a steel strap around a steel rod passing from the nose of each runner. the draft ran back to the first bunk or crossmember of the sled so the shafts were only for steering and holdback. new steel shafts run back to a centered peice of square tubing bolted into a peice of larger steel. it seems to me that the older method exerted more leverage on the sled while turning, but i’m no engineer. on dry ground with runners, you don’t really need shafts. loose rigging is fine. welcome to the mix.

mitch

[Anonymous]

Thanks, Mitch — very helpful. I’m supposing that since the draft power is attached to the singletree, the shafts may have some leeway. I added a couple of one-inch PVC pieces (right on my chains full length to the tree) to get my horse used to the idea of shafts. I think it helps a little to prevent the sled from running up on the horse going down our very hard steep snow drifts. Would love to visit with anyone who has built a pung similar to this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110613533000&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[Author]

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