Snow Sleigh on skis
In the winter of 2018-2019 I created a snow sleigh. I was tired of having to put a rope on a big black box and dragging the snow from our backyard to the front yard. I also knew I would be carving at Fairmont Chateau Montebello in February of 2019 and thought I might have to transport snow to the location of the build. Dragging the box was exhausting. Now it’s a joy and pushing the sleigh is basically a moment of rest. Let’s study this little project.
The box itself was about 5’ long and cost $20.00 at Costco. What a find. I had an old pair of xc skis that I could not part with. I had bought them for my wife but broke a tail of one while rubbing in some wax one morning. Bummer. I didn’t realise my own strength and was trying to really push hard to get the wax to smooth out. No longer worthy for xc skiing, these skis became perfect for the snow sleigh project. The first task was to attempt to glue the tail back together. I knew I could not do a perfect job, but it would be good enough for my new purpose. I first tried some extra construction adhesive I had but it would not stick. I did have some success though with 2 part epoxy and some clamps. Next I harvested a piece of the red plywood from and old form and cut it to just bigger than the box. I screwed (from behind) small strips of wood onto the edge so that the box would just fix. All screw locations for this project were predrilled to reduce the risk of splitting. These strips would hold the box in place and allow me to simply push the box from behind. To attach the skis, I cut four 2 x 4 blocks to raise the tray off the ground—I might be pushing through a bit of snow and didn’t want the box tray to get caught. The blocks had a slight angle to them to match the camber of the skis. I then screwed the skis to the blocks from underneath the ski—2 screws per block for a total of 8. I then carefully lined up the ski/block to the underside of the tray and put in a couple of screws from the top side each. I then waited for snow to try it out. It was very cool to fill the box during the first snowfall and effortlessly slide it to the front of the house. One minor inconvenience of the snow mover is the necessity of lifting it up and reversing its direction when I’m about to set off for the next load of snow. Why not have ski tips on both ends. So I shaped a couple of old 2 x 2’s into the necessary shape. Another example of minor Continuous Improvement to make the work easier. See if you can view them attached to the tails of the skis below. |
Snow Sleigh on Wheels
Later I would need a second type of snow mover after getting permission to create a snow sculpture in the City of Waterloo Public Square. The idea was to carve some snow sculpture fun for the community next to the city square skating rink and allow me to sculpt when there was no snow. What? Carve with no snow? What madness. Actually, the idea was to use the ‘zamboni’ scrapings off the artificial ice rink that people enjoyed through the winter months. The city agreed but picked a location for the sculpture on the opposite side of the rink That would be a big carry from where the Zamboni piled the snow scrapings. With possibly no other snow in the square for the sleigh to slide on, I had a challenge. I decided to make another snow mover using casters. I harvested another piece of plywood and found some casters to screw on the bottom. I used fixed casters for the back end and swivel casters for the front. I also put a rope on the front of this contraption. Before tying the second knot, I slid the rope through a two foot ABS pipe to make an easy pull handle. Carving with Zamboni scrapings is not as nice as natural fluffy snow, but it is possible. The second time I carved at the Public Square I was able to time my arrival after a big storm. They had decided to scrape the rink with a snow plow. And the city worker was more than happy to plow a big pile over to a location close to my build. Filling the form that morning was an easy task!