Making a Pulk and need to find right sled

your choice of sled may turn out to be a snag monster, unless you are on the open trail. It is hard to tell from the picture, but it appears to have a huge downward facing lip. This will cause problems if you go off trail. It is great for keeping snow out of kids faces, but will slow you down in the bush. I found out the hard way with my first design.

I'm still trying to get my mind around the need for an "ultralight" pulk. Kind of like ultralight car camping.

Dave

Thanks for your comments everyone. I have already done my research and have a design. I just needed to find out where I can get the sled. I bought an Emsco Orange Beast and am going to try that too but I also have some people who might be interested in a group purchase of the Paris sled. I'll have a post about the Emsco version on my blog soon. Off to go snowshoeing….

Jason – Where did you find the Emsco sled?

David,
Ace Hardware. I got the last one they had at my local store. Some stores carry them, some don't so You have to call around and ask to find which ones have them. It was more than I wanted to pay ($41) but it is a good sled. I will probably make 2: one out of the Emsco and one out of the Paris Expedition if the group purchase goes through.

Just an FYI – Jax in Loveland has the Emsco Beast for $20… I'm gussing the other two Jax locations would have it for that price also.

That Emsco sled looks perfect – I'll see if I can find one around here.

I have 5 people confirmed for a group purchase. We need one more. Please email me at jasonk1974@msn.com if you want to be the sixth.

If I can't find one up in Duluth this weekend, I would be interested… Someone else will probably beat me to the punch though.

The local Ace Hardware is going to bring an Emsco "Beast" sled in for me this week. $41.00, plus tax.

That will give me a chance to play with it over Thanksgiving weekend.

One question – I don't understand descriptions I've read about putting some bungee in the tow line. I think you place the bungee with the tow line in the PVC and it's intended to even out the tug on the sled.

Maybe you just attach a short length of bungee to some slack in the tow line.

I'm not sure.

Anybody know how that's supposed to work?

The quick and dirty way to pull the pulk is to simply fix ropes to the front corners and tie the ropes near your waist. However, if you get on uneven terrain, contours, and a generally bumpy route, you will do better if you fix fairly rigid poles in place of the rope. The poles could be made out of thin plastic water pipe, thin fiberglas, thin metal tubing, or even thin wood such as bamboo.

This is especially true of you are doing any downhills. As you start to descend, if the pulk is attached by simple ropes, it may slide faster than the puller is, and it will run into the heels of the puller. Rigid poles will prevent this. Also, if you travel along a path with side to side bumps, the rope-attached pulk will tend to flip over. The rigid pole-attached pulk is much more difficult to flip over.

Once you get everything rigged up, but before you put your load on the pulk, use some kind of anti-stick compound to prevent icing on the snow surface of the pulk. That could be spray oil, ski wax, or silicone lubricant.

–B.G.–

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzBlOkNqdMg

This is a video of my pulk sled design using the Paris Expedition Sled.

I bought the sleds at REI:

http://www.rei.com/product/609482

It's a seasonal item, so hopefully REI will have them back in stock soon. Last year, they also sold them at Walmart.com with free shipping to the store. They're not available there yet either.

I got an Emsco "Beast" sled at Dick's Sporting Goods last year, but I haven't tried convert it yet. It's a little longer that the Paris sled, but looks like it might work pretty well as a pulk. This should give you a list of where to get this sled:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=emsco+beast&sqi=2&cid=1792302321628560634&os=sellers#

Bill

Does nobody use a toboggan as a pulk? Garrett and Alexandra Conover seem to love these in their book The Winter Wilderness Companion .

Thanks for posting this Bill. Your video is what inspired me to make a pulk in the first place. I plan on using the same method you used to attach the traces. Very simple, strong and no metal hardware to fail. Great design!

If you $200 that you aren't using for other gear, look at
http://www.northernsledworks.com/Siglin_Pulks.html
These are Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene, super slippery and abrasion resistant. Same material that's used in dump truck linings, even frozen gravel slides out, and it wears really well. Very slippery, durable, and expensive.

Here's a photo of the pulk I just built. It was really easy.

For now I am using a very old Kelty fanny pack as a harness, but I might change that.

I have an old pair of skis that I could very easily bolt to the bottom. Seems like it would slide easier and track better. But I haven't seen any photos of pulks with skis on the bottom.

Anyone know if there is a reason for that?

"But I haven't seen any photos of pulks with skis on the bottom."

I don't think a pulk has runners on the bottom. A sled might.

If you are towing a load of 10-60 pounds, I don't think that you need runners. Just spray a little non-stick spray on the bottom surface and you will be good unless you want to drag it over rocks or something.

–B.G.–

Good luck with your pulk sled project. I'm digging up the links to the sites where I bought the grommets, belt webbing, and belt pads last year. I'll post the information on my new blog at:
http://drpulk.blogspot.com/

I don't think you want to put skis on the bottom. It would raise the center of gravity and make it more likely to roll over. Plus, you want to spread the weight over as much area as possible so the sled floats higher.

I carry a can of silicon spray from Walmart and spray the bottom of the sled before I start. I've also tried automobile paste wax, which works for awhile, but it's a mess. If you're wealthy, I hear the fluoro ski waxes work.

I bolted 1/2 inch aluminum angle iron to the back 2 feet of the sled to keep it from slipping sideways on the trails here in Oregon. They can ice up in warm weather, but the spray helps that too.

Good luck with your pulk, and thanks for the photos. Most of the fun is building it and trying new designs.

I found good locations for grommets on the Emsco Beast sled. More pictures and info are at: http://drpulk.blogspot.com/

What? No titanium grommets?

–B.G.–

Bill, I know your design principle is KISS and you may not care about the weight, but Jason was going with it because it's lighter. It seems like any weight savings from the mounting components is given back (plus some) in the 2 ft of 1/2" angle iron (times 2). Do you really need that much or just going with that length to be sure? Mine uses the more rigid metal/ball joint/hitch pin connection. I do have fins (about 6" long as I recall) that I use when skiing downhill but I flip them over and mount them in the sled at other times. So far I've never needed them when not skiing downhill. I'm thinking that might be because the connections have much less play than the rope mounts would and offer more control.

I do think the fins/rails offer some additional resistance. My friend left his on during a climb last year and was struggling a bit. I convinced him to take them off and he thought it made a significant difference. It was on a really packed trail and you could see his pulk was riding on the fins and not taking advantage of the more generous surface area of the sled. His were mounted with regular nuts as he intended to always have them on and were tough to get off. I use wing nuts with lock washers and I can easily change back and forth if I found I needed them.

I don't bother with the spray lubricant on the bottom. The snow is pretty dry here in Colorado so it doesn't stick to the sled or the fins.

Thanks for the feedback, Randy. I forgot this is a "light" forum, so I weighed my aluminum runners and stainless steel fasteners.

The 1/2" x 3/4" (1/8" thick) angle aluminum (not iron) weighs about 0.1 oz per foot. Each bolt/nut/fender washer weighs 0.4 oz. The total weight of the 2 runners on my sled with fasteners is 8.2 oz.

The rope loops and grommets are much simpler and lighter than the ball joints, etc. The connection is just as tight, and also more flexible in all directions.

The resistance of the runners is more related to their depth (1/2") than length. But sideways resistance is related to cross-sectional area, so longer runners resist sideways slippage more.

I assume that the fins you talk about are more than 1/2" deep, so they probably have more resistance than the longer runners.

I just finished my Emsco "Beast" sled, and I'm planning to try it out tomorrow. For this test, I put a single runner in the back center of the sled that is 32 inches long. I'll post some pictures next week.

Bill

Bill,

Did you mean 1 oz per foot? Or .1 oz? Either way that is much lighter than mine. I'm also using 1/8" thick aluminum angle which is 1×1 and my fin, which is 4.75" long (and tapered from front to back), is 2 oz. With the 2 sets of stainless hardware, it's close to 4 oz each. I don't really know that much about aluminum to know if there are lighter types than what I'm using available. I just went to an aluminum sales place and picked up what looked like it would work. I'll have to ask my buddy who's an aluminum extrusion salesman if I can get something lighter. Either way, it is clear that you are not giving up the weight gained by using the lighter connections.

" The connection is just as tight, and also more flexible in all directions."

But why do you want it to be? With the hitch pin ball/joint you have completely free north/south (up and down) movement but east/west movement is very restricted. Which I think holds the sled on track more. To a certain degree of course. I don't think I stated this right but this is what I what I was getting at. With the hitch pin/ball joint connection, there's very little side to side movement. Once the pulk is connected to the user, if you try to slide the back end left or right you are immediately met with resistance and can only move it at all a few inches. I would guess that the ropes would twist fairly far sideways so the pulk can more easily slide left or right. And why the long runners are needed. If you get a chance, do a test where someone grabs the rear of the pulk when it is hooked up to you and see how far they can move the rear end left or right.

I'm not trying to make this the "battle of the pulks" as obviously they both work for their owner but thinking and theorizing about stuff like this is a lot of fun.

I meant to say 0.1 oz per inch. My 16 inch leftover piece weighs 1.6 oz. The total weights are correct.

Take a look at my video starting at around 3:15.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzBlOkNqdMg&t=3m15s

The rope loop/strap setup holds the poles tightly against the sled just like a metal ball joint, with the same effect. It's just a simpler way of doing the same thing. I do think my belt setup has less slop than using a metal eye and sewn loop on the belt, though. The video demonstrates this too.

Parallel poles keep the sled from rotating, but it can move side to side with no resistance. This causes big problems when you try to slow down going downhill as shown here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmevvPMVi50&t=1m15s

There's too much leverage for the poles to do much if the back of the sled breaks loose on a side slope. The belt just rotates or you rotate. But if you watch the rest of my video, you can see how crossed poles help the sled follow you around curves and stay on the trail.

Yeah, the restriction I was referring to was with the poles crossed. Without being crossed there would be way more play. I've never sen anyone not cross the poles. I haven't had the sliding issue but for the most part I'm always on trails. I haven't seen any steep side hills so far. Skiing downhill I wouldn't consider not using the fins. Too much centrifugal force when turning. Unfortunately I don't have any video. Im January we're climbing a 13'er so there will be plenty of time skiing above treeline to get some decent video.

I just use straps that I sewed onto my daypack for those connections. Works great. I don't see any reason to do anything different there.

Here's a pic of me and my pulk. BTW, you can't tell from the pic but that is my first backpack in the pulk. A Camp Trails external frame (frame removed here) that I got when I was 15. I knew I was holding onto it all these years for a reason! :)