sleigh shafts

[meleon]

Hi all,
long time lurker first time poster.
I am in the process of building a single horse wooden box sleigh. The other day a found a set of shafts in the loft of my father in-laws loft. These shafts have trace chains attached to them at about mid shaft See first picture.
My question is: will this set up work as well as a single tree? or should I remove them and attach a single tree to the sleigh like I have normally seen?

Also I assume that with shafts of this type, (i.e. connected together at the base) that they be attached to the inside of the sleigh runners. Correct?

Thanks
Jamie

[Andy Carson]

Welcome Jamie,
The chains you are refering to would definately not be suitable for pulling a sled with, you will want a singletree arrangement. Those chains were probably used as holdbacks to keep the sled from running up on the horse upon braking or on downhills. Straps are more common for this use than chains, but you will definately need some sort of holdback system. I would recommend looking up some old plans or pictures of how sleds are put together and that should answer some or your questions about locating the shafts and the singletree. Good luck, and please share how this all goes!

[meleon]

Thanks,
I thought they where actually part breeching, but my father in-law insisted they attached to the collar. There is another clip? on the other side of the shafts where the breeching straps connect to I believe (barely visible in first attached), so I reluctantly believed him.

Here are some pictures of my pattern I hauled outta the woods.
So far I have the runners cut from a crooked yellow birch, and these shafts.
My pattern sleigh has been completely disassembled, working on it as time permits.
Jamie

[jac]

Yep I would agree with your father in law.. we have exactly the same set up over here in Scotland. The top chains went to the collar and the lower staples took the breeching… Works well…tho i would second Andy on the singletree .. I converted my shafts on our hay turner and it works a treat with the western breeching harness we use now.. look forward to the finished article Jamie….
John

[Andy Carson]

@jac 21281 wrote:

we have exactly the same set up over here in Scotland.

Really? Wow, I have to say I’m suprised… It is such a small chain, there is no swivel from a singletree, and I would think a strong forward pull would wallow out the holes in the wooden shafts in a short time. I guess having everything light makes this work OK, but I sure wouldn’t have expected that…

[meleon]

I am pretty sure that I am going to attach a singletree to the sleigh the same way it was on my pattern. assuming that cross member on the shafts doesn’t interfere with the location of the original.

here is a couple of pictures of the runners (they still need final shaping). They are 2 1/4″ thick and 5″ deep. Hard to see in the pictures, but the grain follows the curve, Had my brother mill these out of a crooked log on his woodmiser band mill.
The last picture’s of the motor. 13yr French Canadian mare. (Thankfully she knows English too)

I may make a set of autcad drawings of this as I go. I suck at remembering to take pictures,
Hard to find plans of horse drawn stuff. (maybe there’s a liability thing?)

Jamie

[jac]

Andy I should have elaborated a bit more .. the original Scottish set up didnt have a singletree. I put one on the turner to make it easier to use the American harness.. full length traces straight to singletree and the quarter straps snapped to the staple under the shaft…
John

[goodcompanion]

@Countymouse 21282 wrote:

Really? Wow, I have to say I’m suprised… It is such a small chain, there is no swivel from a singletree, and I would think a strong forward pull would wallow out the holes in the wooden shafts in a short time. I guess having everything light makes this work OK, but I sure wouldn’t have expected that…

But isn’t the function of this chain, if it indeed attaches to the collar, just to stabilize the shafts? Wouldn’t even a british harness also have a singletree, that would do the main job of taking up the load?

[mitchmaine]

@jac 21281 wrote:

Yep I would agree with your father in law.. we have exactly the same set up over here in Scotland. The top chains went to the collar and the lower staples took the breeching… Works well…tho i would second Andy on the singletree .. I converted my shafts on our hay turner and it works a treat with the western breeching harness we use now.. look forward to the finished article Jamie….
John

hey john, does your scot harness have shaft loops to secure the shafts? and do the chains go to the hames? more details if you would. thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

jamie, hey there and welcome. in that second group of pictures ( the one of the nose of the sled), it looks like a singletree hooked to the nose of the sled to me. can’t see it too clearly. am i mistaken?
mitch

[jac]

Mitch British shafts have a slide arangement that takes a ridge chain over the cart saddle on 2 wheeled carts. 2 draw chains, as they were called over here, went from the collar to staples towards the rear of the shaft. A hook on the front of the slider took the trace chain from an extra horse hooked up front. In the picture I have modified the original set up by using the staple that used to take the short chain from the collar, and used that for my quarter straps. a hook on the back of the slider took the original breeching chain..
John

[mitchmaine]

@jac 21293 wrote:

Mitch British shafts have a slide arangement that takes a ridge chain over the cart saddle on 2 wheeled carts. 2 draw chains, as they were called over here, went from the collar to staples towards the rear of the shaft. A hook on the front of the slider took the trace chain from an extra horse hooked up front. In the picture I have modified the original set up by using the staple that used to take the short chain from the collar, and used that for my quarter straps. a hook on the back of the slider took the original breeching chain..
John

thanks john, before i saw your photo, it seemed like alot of strain on the shafts with all the draft coming from there. seemed snug enough with the horse held fore and aft. but your picture shows a much stouter shaft equal to the force, and whos gonna argue with a thousand years of technology, right? best wishes, mitch

[grey]

Much of the traditional coaching and farming practices that come from the UK do not make use of a pivoting tree to attach the traces to. In the case of a team on a wagon pole or tongue, a draw bar or splinter bar is the fixed bar that goes perpendicular to the wagon tongue or pole, or the shafts. It goes across the front of the vehicle and the traces attach to it, usually via roller-bolts. The draw bar/splinter bar does not pivot like our singletrees, nor does it provide any balancing functions like an evener does.

A draw bar or splinter bar would also be used on a light vehicle with a single horse in shafts.

On a heavier vehicle, heavy shafts are used. These heavy shafts usually have a large rectangular staple driven through the top of the shaft. Think of this staple as the D-ring on a D-ring harness. It is the meeting point for the four main functions of the harness: the traces attach to it from the collar, the breeching attaches to it from the rear, a ridge chain goes up and over the horse’s back to carry the weight of the shafts, and a strap goes under the horse’s belly to anchor the shafts down.

There is a myth that is somehow still going strong among some of the UK-style coaching types that the use of a pivoting tree with a neck collar causes sore shoulders due to “intermittant pressure” against the shoulder. I can’t imagine what they are doing wrong to cause this. There must be something about the way they connect their horses to their vehicle, or fit the collar to their horse. It might have something to do with their method of holding back the vehicle – the pole strap around the collar seems to be popular. In some circles, a pivoting tree is only used with a breastcollar harness, and a splinter bar is used with neck-collar harnesses.

[grey]

@jac 21293 wrote:

Mitch British shafts have a slide arangement that takes a ridge chain over the cart saddle on 2 wheeled carts. 2 draw chains, as they were called over here, went from the collar to staples towards the rear of the shaft. A hook on the front of the slider took the trace chain from an extra horse hooked up front. In the picture I have modified the original set up by using the staple that used to take the short chain from the collar, and used that for my quarter straps. a hook on the back of the slider took the original breeching chain..
John

Oh, I have a million questions for you!

In order to keep that heavy top staple at the horse’s girth, it looks like you have to put the horse’s hocks awfully close to the singletree. Do you find that the horse ever hits his hocks on it?

Are you able to hook close enough that the horse always uses his collar to draw the implement? Or does he sometimes draw with the back-pad and girth?

Do you find that the back pad carries the weight on the shafts adequately? The heavy shafts were designed to be used in conjunction with the cart saddle, which has a heavily-padded internal tree that helps distribute the weight of the shafts onto either side of the spine.

I would consider that britchen to be a bit narrow for most of my purposes. If you don’t have any slopes to navigate, I can see how it would be adequate, but I would expect to see that on perhaps a light buggy harness and not a work harness.

Do your harness buckles (such as those on the britchen spider) have a center post (we call them conway buckles or post buckles) or are they just slides?

I am surprised to see the straps doubled in the opposite direction as is usually done over here. Do you find that the tail of the strap catches on things or sometimes catches your lines?

[grey]

One more: have you done what I think is called “corncobbing” to your horse’s tail?

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