The sled project stretched my design process out considerably. It was complicated enough that I gave it it’s own page on the website. I started by looking at luge and skeleton sleds used competitively. I looked at (and remembered) the steel Radio Flier. The stresses a sled undergoes are immense and to make it entirely out of wood with no steel brackets…. and it had to be light.
The runners are bent laminated ash, one of the toughest American hardwoods. The cross members started as 5/4” x 5 1/2” hickory, the hardest, toughest American hardwood, by far and away. Try cutting dovetails in that!! The deck is meranti, the current plantation grown substitute for mahogany. The 2 outside pieces are the lighter yellow meranti. The center piece is is the heavier, stronger red meranti and it’s let into the frame 3/8”.
The ash upper rails are let into the dovetailed hickory frame and into the runners where they cross in the front.
There is a 1/4” threaded steel rod through the runner, frame, and upper rail. The top nut is covered by a bubinga plug and the bottom nut is covered by the lamination of a hickory, and bubinga, wear strip on the runner
