During winter, it’s too cold to walk to places and the roads are too slippery for cars. Wooden sleds drawn by dogs or wolves is a useful form of transportation and a fun sport during winter.
In fact, if you’re into woodworking, you should be able to easily build one.
Starting with Sizes
First, prepare a 2’x10’x16′ board. Use wood that’s elastic, strong, and hard such as white ash or oak. You’ll be cutting the board into pieces for the handle bar, slats, rails, and runners.
For the handle bar, cut four pieces with dimensions of 1/4″x3/4″x6′. For the slats, cut seven pieces with dimensions of 1/4″x2″x8′. For the rails, you have to cut two 1″x1″x8’pieces. As for the runners, simply make two 2″x1″x8′ pieces.
Achieving a Curve
The handlebars, runners, rails, and slats must be formed by clamping them to bender molds and steaming for five hours. Bender molds can be made using any excess pieces of wood.
Take note that the runners will straighten a bit after removing them from the bender molds, so the curve of the molds should actually exceed your intended curve for the runners.
To make your own steamer, get two steel barrels. Cut one of the barrels in half, length-wise. Bore holes in the other barrel. The holes should be the size of wood pieces. The barrel with holes will be placed on top of the barrel cut in half.
After steaming, let the pieces dry for a week while still clamped in the mold. Sand the edges once they have dried. You may choose to make the edges of these pieces round, except the runners and false runners.
Stanchions and Crosses
Prepare the stanchions by cutting two pieces with dimensions of 1″x2″x36″, another two pieces with dimensions of 1″x2″x27″, and two more pieces with dimensions of 1″x2″x18″. Initially cut them a bit longer than the desired length.
Make the bottoms of the 36″ pieces round. These longest pieces must fit the false runners and the shortest pieces must fit the runners. Make sure to smoothen the edges by sanding.
For the false runners, cut two 2″x1″x4′ pieces. Don’t forget to cut the front part at an angle. Then, cut the braces as necessary.
For the cross piece in front, cut a wedge with a thickness of 1/4″ on one side and 3/4″ on the other. Its width must be 2”, while the length should be 20½”. For the other cross parts, cut four pieces with a dimension of 1″x1″x21″.
Assembling the Sled
To put everything together, attach the false runner to the runner using three 3/8″x4″ bolts for each runner. Around 25″ should be left behind the stanchions. Using bolts, attach the shortest stanchions 2″ above the curve.
Put the middle stanchions between the shortest and longest stanchions. You may also choose to screw aluminum rails to the bottom part of the runners. If you want your sled to stand out, paint or stain the wood as desired.
Now, you just need your wolves or dogs to pull your wooden sled. Indeed, learning how to build a wooden wolf- or dog-drawn sled for transportation during Arctic winters isn’t the most difficult thing to do.
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