[mitchmaine]

@Does’ Leap 32590 wrote:

Great stuff here. It is amazing to think that this “conversation” on this scale could not have happened even 20 years ago, not to mention 100 years ago when use of sleds was common. Needless to say, I am sufficiently convinced – shorter runner, bunk back, load forward. I’ll keep you posted on its acquisition. Thanks to all.

George

George, tim,
Do you mean this conversation couldn’t have existed 100 years ago because of the lack of a computer? Back then This conversation wouldn’t have even been necessary. Those guys worked in the woods and fields every day of their lives. They designed and improved the bobsled, scoot and d-ring harness. Not by accident but knowledge and experience. They knew how much they could load and go with, because they had done it a million times with good horses and bad, good scoots and bad, good woodlots and bad. They didn’t ask Archimedes to help them roll logs because he thought about it too much. Sometimes you just have to get down and get going and figure it out as we go. Those old guys are gone now and we have to remember what they said. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hello bill, holding on as long as possible. don’t quite know why. looks like a short season. they started posting the roads today. sawing pine lumber yesterday and bleeding sap. strange times. we have tapped before in february but never this early. give a holler when you start up. thanks, mitch

[mitchmaine]

hey andy, didn’t see your reply. do you think the bunks were centered for use as a double set of sleds with cross chains? a tight turn might require the bunks centered, and lift might be let go in favor of turning? just a thought.

[mitchmaine]

Carl,
I have a set of sled irons with the skid rests in the bunk clamps, suggesting that wood was rolled up onto the sled. The wood is mostly gone but the bolts show that the bunk was centered on the bearing surface of each sled. With the rear sled a foot longer that the front sleds. Wonder if your set was the front half of a double set, cut back to use single?

[mitchmaine]

Hi tom,
The nature of the work is slow and deliberate. Quiet too. And gives you lots of time to think about different methods of moving wood. Tim laid it out fairly well. Try them all and other ways you can think of. In the end, the way that suits you and your team will solve itself. Try and resist the cable skidder. Best of luck and glad you’r in the woods. Four hours seems like a good day for a young team. You might try doing your chopping in the afternoon, and cleaning it up the next morning when they are fresh. Might work. mitch

[mitchmaine]

all the old blacksmiths shops had their own patterns and molds, guarded and protected, that, in the end, set the mark for their own sleds and ironwork. it was their signature, if you will. that sled was made in jim browns shop and so on. and they had their own patrons who would go no where else, cause………………best…………..perfect………..greatest….and so on.
but it probably comes down to what carl said,” it comes down to personal preference, i wouldn’t want my sled made that way.” that about says it all.

[mitchmaine]

mares too? all the better. gotta come see them work someday.

[mitchmaine]

my favorite cross, bill. wicked!

[mitchmaine]

pretty happy teamster there. great post george, and thanks. we are really needing a next generation. mitch

[mitchmaine]

hi george,
nice looking job. looks great. i know we don’t have the same country you have over there but ice a on a slope is ice on a slope, and i have been looping a twelve foot chain under the stone boat hooking in both sides to the draw chain shortened up to run three or four feet back under the load. works good for me and if i ride the load i get more brakes. don’t try it on glare ice first. i’d start in snow and work my way up. i made a one foot sided 2×4 foot box and screwed it down on top of the stoneboat and throw all my stuff in that. pretty simple and adaptable to different needs.

[mitchmaine]

we seem to have just missed the 60 degree weather the rest of the country was getting there, high 20’s here. it snowed for two days tues. and weds. and put down only 3″ of the finest snow you could imagine on top of the ice we all seem to be enjoying so we are all taking our tumbles. horses, people and so on. our border collie seems to keep his footing best. i’m just wondering whats going to happen to the sugar season? the willow buds seem already to burst. nothin’ to do but wait and see whats next.

[mitchmaine]

my stoneboat is about 8′ long and cleated at the end with a 2×6 with carriage bolts up through the bottom. but……….when i was younger, we had a stoneboat about 12′ long and it had no binding on the end. it was four peices of two inch planks bolted into the nose with a two inch opening in the middle running the length of the stoneboat. we towed it behind the baler and someone walked behind taking bales out of the balecase and stacking them on the stoneboat. when there were about a dozen bales on the stoneboat, the same person took an iron bar and using the slot in the planks, stuck it in the ground in front of the stacked bales and stripped the bales off the boat into a pile and started all over again. so depending on how you intend to use it, you can get away with lots of different methods.

[mitchmaine]

hey george,

i haven’t seen a dog like that before. like someone said, it looks like a pinchbar, alot like one, and i wonder if somebody might have once adapted this tool to pull spikes in some job or something. i really don’t know, but i mightg be inclined to put a real dog in your peavy. the cones used to split alot and there were always more dogs laying around than heads. i think i have some, and might have tried once to make a set of tongs that i remember didn’t work too well, but i could try and look them up if you need one.

[mitchmaine]

hey george, can you show us a better photo of the dogs?

[mitchmaine]

@PhilG 32027 wrote:

OK, I want to know why all these loads are so HUGE ! I want to see a load of logs like that being pulled in 2012, otherwise I am just going to asume that they loaded up some extra logs for the photo and then trimmed down for the pull. Or maybe I just need to trade in my belly backers for D rings?

One of the best parts of this thread are all the logging/team photos generated by it. Scott golden posted a bunch on face book that were really great showing loading bob sleds with a gin pole. That was one step that was always missing for me. I had seen lots of the photos of the big loads and wondered how the heck did they get that wood up there. Some logbrow.
phil, there is a short film that you can find on youtube about logging in the 1930’s called stump to ship, and it show lots of big sleds and big loads moving lots of wood. The thing I tend to forget sometimes is the available manpower that logging companies had to cut and yard wood with. We seemed locked in a mindset today of one farmer or one logger doing the work of ten with some monster machine, and certainly the economics seem against us. like tim said, they had whole crews dedicated to freezing stretches of road at night, or putting hay down on steep bits.
I found a photograph of a man at the top of the hill paying out snubline to an invisible load of logs going down a ravine, and the birch his rope was set around looked like it would burst into flame any second. That must have been a fun job. All those photographs can seem unbelievable at times. The size of the loads and the slope of the hillsides. Riverdrivers sleeping on the banks of the river in their wet boots so the boots wouldn’t freeze solid during the night. Who were those guys? Our greatgrandparents.

[Author]

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