A Sleigh for my 350b + How much ice for safe travel?

[Scottyb]

I have been on the search for a nice sleigh to pull behind my crawler and today I brought one home. This beauty will be covered with straw bales, a few railings, perhaps a pot bellied stove, some lights and it will be off into the night with friends for winter sleigh rides.

For many years I had horses but they are all gone now. However a crawler will do nicely and I don't have to feed it everyday.

I plan to pull it with the 350b loader, with some bolts in the pads for traction, and an exhaust extension up to about 8' above the hood. I might try an old truck muffler in that extension as well.

I plan to go out onto the lake when the ice thickness is good. How thick should it be for safe travel for a 350 loader? We will usually get 3-4 feet by February but It would be nice to go on the ice before then.

Scott

[Lavoy]

Around here, they will run cars on 8" or more, personally I would like to see a foot, but I don't swim well.
Lavoy

[JWB Contracting]

Looks like your planning for a relaxing winter.

Have you ever considered a 440 Deere skidder? They go great in snow and would pull that sleight along nicely.

Last one I had I sold for $7k and was real decent. I know there are lots of them out there, they are much too small for logging (unless your doing some real selective logging in a sensitive area). When logging was big in the early nineties, we could sell as many as we could fix for upwards of $20k.

My dad still has his that he bought used in 73 and now is used for pulling a disc and cultivator a couple if times a year.

This would keep you in a Deere, plus you could do some log skidding in your spare time.

[hydrogeo]

This guy seems to know a thing or two about sleighs on ice:

www.kingofobsolete.ca

His web site is a great way to waste a couple hours if you like old iron.

[Scottyb]

Wow, I like the look of that 440 skidder. I had to google it to see what it was. Selective logging is exactly what we have been doing here. and the 440 would have worked well. The winch and arch on the 350b has also worked out very nicely. It has the added benefit of the street pads that go easy on the trails and around the yard. I still want one of these 440 skidders. Our snowmobile club needs something to clear wind fallen trees, this could be the answer.
I assume it is lighter and faster than a 350?
attached a photo..
http://image.usedottawa.com/photos/03/7 ... 73_300.jpg

[Scottyb]

This info on ice thickness came from my favourite uncle...

350B on ice; Min one foot of new ice with crawler speeds below 5 mph and
outside air temp below minus 10 C [ not wind chill temp unless ice is bare of snow cover.] the weight isn't as important as the track jarring that will
destroy ice under pressure during a quick freeze [ much like hitting your
car side glass with a pointy object.] how can this info be trusted? not much
as the variables are always too many.

l once was quite knowledgeable on this subject as in 1969 we built runways on the ice at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska and
Melville island for Hercules aircraft weighing up to 150 thousand pounds but, with large tires whereas the cat. tracked mules for moving aircraft were always a challenge because of their destructiveness to the frozen surfaces.

RB

[Lavoy]

Would it help them if there was a layer of snow on the ice to cut down on the "impact" so to speak?
Lavoy

[Scottyb]

i found a government booklet on line that has a weight to ice thickness chart on page 17-18.

http://www.dot.gov.nt.ca/_live/document ... %20web.pdf

I will need a bit thicker than 60 cm... or 24 inches of good ice for the weight of the 350 according to the chart. Other things matter as well, weather, cracks etc.

CORRECTION...I just looked at the chart again and noticed that I did not convert the kilos to lbs. So as I calculate it now, it only takes 16 inches of good ice for my crawler. I do not think I would be comfortable at 16 inches, so perhaps at 2 feet thick I will put on my life jacket and give it a go. the chart says at 2 feet it could carry 14,000 kgs = 30,800 lbs!
Scott

[Scottyb]

Lavoy,

I think the snow would make the difference for sure. It is also easier on the back driving my Deeres when their is some snow. I was on a hard road yesterday with some frozen chunks of ice and dirt on the pads and it beat up my back in ten minutes. I came home in the ditch as we have about 18 inches of snow. I can see where clear ice would get damaged with that kind of shock.
When I do get out onto the lake, We will stay near the beach, at least until the ice is really thick, close enough to shore that the ice freezes all the way to the bottom. Our lake has shallow shorelines so unless snow drifts in real deep near the beach, we can get around the lake close in.

I made a correction to my previous post as I had the thickness wrong.

Scott

[digitup2]

We did an Ice road 4 years ago and just keep the ice cleaned off all the time and let the cold drive down in to it you need about 16 inches of good ice for a small light crawler and closer to 20 inches for a 350-450 crawler [There wasn't an insurance company in Canada that would cover a crawler on an ice road !]Now rubber tires run a lot easier across ice than crawler grousers as the grousers will tend to chuck and jump the ice so again take it easy or you will go down dragging your sleigh in behind you depending on the depth of the water under the ice any deeper than 5 feet and I wouldn't recommend it at all .We had to get sand gravel and supply's across too an island and I would not be out there just on a joy ride but then again I can't swim so it was no picnic driving the old Chevy dump truck across that ice .Digitup.

[gus]

If I'm driving the crawler...ice don't get that thick. Iron sinks in water, hard or otherwise.

[Lavoy]

Water wings?
Lavoy