Skis are on

[52#FLATHEAD]

Got the skis mounted to my Voyager today. A little extra on each end for flex at the ski & not the sled. This should save some wear & tear.

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[Sonicrunch]

Brilliant!

[Kyle Sandberg]

Great Job.

We did this to our sled on our Eskimo fish house and I'll tell you what, if I can find another cheap pair of skies, they'll be going on my house. It's just like hyfax or maybe stronger.

[Shack]

Very nice!

[dkhntr]

you want cheap old skis?????

Go to your local goodwill and keep an eye out. Thats where I have seen a ton in the past. $5 will usually get you some.

[bgreen82]

ive seen them for anywhere between 5 and 20 dollars on hsolist also.

[zamboni]

How'd you mount those?

[52#FLATHEAD]

I picked these up at a pawn shop in Yankton, SD for $15. I thought they were kind of heavy, but once you get all the boot brackets off of the skis, a ski doesn't weigh very much at all. The boot brackets weigh more than the skis! I had a concern about getting the skis parralel because the ski is not the same shape from end to end. Luckily there is a machined groove down the center of the bottom side so I could measure correctly. I filled in the void on each end w/ Dap 50 year black silicone. It will still let the ends flex. I just hope I got everything square to the sled - don't want it dog tracking too bad

[52#FLATHEAD]

I picked up some stainless bolts & nuts for under $10. Buy the bolts w/ the head that can be countersunk & have a phillips head, size 3/16". It doesn't take much to hold them on if you run a bead of silicone down the center before you bolt them on. And get some 3/16" fender washers to help distribute the load of the nut.

[Jim Almquist]

52#flathead It looks good now but I would not drag it across a tar road or rocks. I went thru 2 set of skis and then went to aluminum stock and still wore them out. This year I put on UHMW rectangular bar 3/4" x 1" on the advice that this stuff is suppose to wear very well. I have a Otter lodge and it was filled with all the gear for the wife and I so her fish trap was pretty much empty.Good looking job of mounting the skis.

[52#FLATHEAD]

I did consider some poly strips 3/4" thick X 2" wide. It's like the white top of a cutting table that you see in meat departments of grocery stores. (I repair commercial food equipment for a living, Hobart repairman)That poly top is awesome stuff. I have cut it w/ a radial arm saw, circular saw & jig saw, it drills like a dream & you can even router it. Don't wear anything fuzzy like a sweatshirt while cutting it - you end up looking like a snowman from all the plastic chips.

There's a place in Sioux City, IA that makes that stuff. You can buy it in 4'X8' sheets if ya want. I didn't want to wait for the poly & the skis were cheaper than the poly.

I really don't drag my house anywhere except the snow & ice. We empty the truck at the boat ramps & try to do minimal damage to the sleds by dragging. I ruined a small jon boat when I was in junior high by dragging it across a blacktop road every day. Might as well have taken a grinder to it.

[fishinJohn]

So does it help a lot? I don't want my fishing spots dictated by the difficulty pulling so this is very interesting to me. On a side note I miss the Hobart dishwasher that I used to use working at a resurant. When I make the big bucks I am getting one for my home!

[b1gf1sh1]

if you have the skis face outward a tad they wont dogtrack. one in one out would be bad. both in i would think would be ok too. the curved front will let it slide easy . awsome idea though. thrift stores are allways a good spot for these. people want to take up skiing and decide they aint no good and give em away. cheap cheap.

[Nate McVey]

I've always thought about putting some of my old snowboards on the bottom of a portable. They also have threaded inserts in them already and the bindings come with sunken set screws. Two of them side by side would almost cover the whole thing. You'd of course have to cut one of the "tips" off. Maybe I'll have to try it and post the results.

[DzNuts]

Shiner, isn't one of the reason for using ski's is to lessen (is that even a word) the amount of contact with ground? Doing two things- Reducing friction and reducing the amount of snow you plow while dragging. It's just a question. Im interested in doing anything to make dragging the beast easier. If you end up going with the snow boards let us know how it worked out.

Ryan

[Tom7227]

The skis look to be cross country skis, not downhill. Any particular reason why? Downhill are wider (and probably shorter) so they may give a little more weight distribution.

I wonder if you could space them up a bit and cut down even more on the contact with the ice. I guess the big issue is how much snow you have to pull through.

[Carp-fisher]

So do the skis significantly reduce the force require to pull the sled? A friend of mine has an Auger Buddy which is essentially an auger stand with a couple of short skis on the bottom. He hangs his bucket 'o stuff including the Vex from one of the handles--all in all its probably over 30 pounds of gear and he can push it with his pinky finger. Can you get this sort of performance from the skis on the sled?

[Nate McVey]

Those are definetly downhill skis in those pics. I have been a snowboarder for the lasat 10 years, but if I remember correctly, Elan doesn't make CC skis.

As far as the snowboards go, I haven't tried it yet, but I would think having a smooth, waxed surface would be easier to pull than the ridged bottom of a sled, IMO.

[eyefever]

I'd have to disagree. I used some elan skis that were cc skis. Downhill skis usually taper narrower in the middle and are shorter.

[Nate McVey]

I stand corrected on the Elan CC skis, but there is no way that those are CC, IMO. Way too wide, 2 in. metal tips and a metal tail......I can't be 100% sure (since I wasn't there when they put them on), but those are downhill skis, probably late 80's early 90's vintage.

[blueroof]

 Quote:

isn't one of the reason for using ski's is to lessen (is that even a word) the amount of contact with ground? Doing two things- Reducing friction and reducing the amount of snow you plow while dragging

The force required to overcome friction isn't affected by the amount of surface area in contact with the terrain, pretty common misconception. The only two factors that reduce the force required to pull an object across a surface are changing the contact material to something that is more slippery (lower friction coefficient) and reducing the mass of the object being pulled.

Reducing the amount of snow you plow with the sled while dragging is of great benefit in reducing force required to pull. Most of the benefit of installing skis and hyfax fall into this category. The attachments either raising the sled up above snow, or fill grooves that are molded into the sled bottoms that catch and plow snow.

LB

[TommyJ33]

How does it track in the snow. Are you pulling it with a snocat or 4 wheeler. if so does it turn well, or do the skis bite in on a turn?

[Tom7227]

 Originally Posted By: blueroof

 Quote:

isn't one of the reason for using ski's is to lessen (is that even a word) the amount of contact with ground? Doing two things- Reducing friction and reducing the amount of snow you plow while dragging

The force required to overcome friction isn't affected by the amount of surface area in contact with the terrain, pretty common misconception. The only two factors that reduce the force required to pull an object across a surface are changing the contact material to something that is more slippery (lower friction coefficient) and reducing the mass of the object being pulled.

Reducing the amount of snow you plow with the sled while dragging is of great benefit in reducing force required to pull. Most of the benefit of installing skis and hyfax fall into this category. The attachments either raising the sled up above snow, or fill grooves that are molded into the sled bottoms that catch and plow snow.

LB

Except when you're pushing snow with the front of the sled. Then the skis would undoubtedly help