Make your own sled

I have wanted a sled for quite a while now.  Finally, over the Easter break, I found a spare afternoon to put one togther using an old car tire, a few bits of wood and some nuts and bolts.

Other things I’ve made

If you’re interested in making other bits of gym equipment, here are some more suggestions:

• Find out how to make a thick bar out of a standard Olympic bar, a piece of drainpipe and some cladding
• Find out how to make simple farmers’ walk bars using nothing more than some weights plates, a carabiner and some climbing slings
• If that’s too easy, find out how to make (more complicated) farmer’s walk bars with a few pieces of wood
• And see how to make a cheap sandbag, using an old army duffel bag

No, not interested.  Show me how to make a sled!

No problem.  It’s very straightforward.  You will need:

• An old car tire.  Choose a big one over a smaller one so that the base of your sled is nice and wide.  This will stop it from tipping over when you push it.
• A square piece of chipboard or similar.  The size should be to cover the tire without too much hanging over the ends.  This will form the platform upon which you rest your added weight.
• A couple of nuts and bolts.  You’ll need four nuts and bolts to attach the chipboard to the tire and one extra-large nut and bolt to form the loading pin for your weights plates.
• A short length of wood to make the pushing handle.  I used the bottom third of a square fence post.
• A piece of rope or cord to make a pulling handle.

Step one: attaching the platform to the base

To start with, I laid my tire out on the back patio and put the piece of chipboard on top of it.  Then I put a standard 20kg (45lb) weight plate on top and drew round it.  This is the inner circle drawn in pencil on the picture below.  The outer circle is the inside of the car tire when I put it on top of the chipboard and ran round with the pencil.

You can see what the nuts and bolts look like from the other side in the next picture.  I drilled a hole through the chipboard and through the tire and then inserted the bolt.  The bolt comes through the  chipboard and the sidewall of the tire and then I put the washer and nut on afterwards.

Step two: attaching a pushing handle

To make the sled easier to push, I attached a pushing handle, which was the bottom third of an old, square fence post that I had kicking around the garden.  The top end had rotted so I wasn’t planning on using it again, which made it perfect for the task in hand.  I pre-drilled some small holes into the fence post and the chipboard and then used a few screws to attach the post to the chipboard.

Step three: attaching a pulling handle

Since I am quite keen to use the sled for pulling as well as pushing, I wanted a pretty secure pulling attachment on the front.  I cut a length of climbing cord about a foot long and then drilled two holes into the tire at the front end.  I fed the cord through the holes and then slotted an offcut of wood, which I had already drilled holes into, over the ends before knotting the cord to stop it pulling back through.  The front of the tire then looked like this:

The back of the tire looks like this:

Step four: adding a loading pin

Since everything moves in the right direction if you keep adding more weight, you’ll want a loading pin.  I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t the best and most robust loading pin but it’s the best I can come up with at the moment.  I drilled a large hole in the middle of my chipboard and then pushed a large bolt through before securing it with a nut.

Step five: setting up a rope to pull it with

Very simply, you can attach a rope to pull the sled with a carabiner.  All you need to do is create a loop in your rope by doubling the end over.  This creates a bight (or loop).  You then do an overhand or figure-of-eight knot holding the bight, which creates a loop at the end of your rope.  You can then attach your rope to the pulling attachment on the sled with a carabiner.

Finished!

That’s it!  You’re done.  It took me about an hour to throw this together and it feels surprisingly sturdy.  I’ve already pushed and pulled it up and down the patio a few times and I’m quite pleased with how it is performing.  As you can see from the final photo below, I tacked an extra piece of wood on the front to stop the plate from moving around against the loading pin.  This should hopefully increase the lifespan of the sled in the long run.

So there you go.  As always, if you make a version because you were inspired by this article, please do let me know in the comments.  And if you’ve already made a sled and you did it a different way, I’d love to hear about it.