mark20

Member
We had a local horse pull on the weekend, couple of us brought our tractors and pulled after the horses were done . Never pulled a stone boat but thought it was awesome , totally different than a transfer sled. Now I want to make one . We were pulling 9300 with a farmall m , that was all the blocks we had . Would anyone have a idea how much weight we would need for a 4500 pound tractor and any designs for a sled? Thanks
 
We built our dead-weight sled 25 years ago so I kind of forget some details. Used four 4ft by 8 ft 3/8 in flat steel welded to form a 8' X 16' sled; 6" pipe across front and back so sled didn't gouge in the dirt; used 5/8 cables figured they were safer than
chain. Sled weighs a lot but for weights a tractor can drag more than it's weight. We have twenty or twenty four 500lb blocks and have classes up to 12,000 lb
 
I was figuring to make the sled as heavy as I could. 8x8 square tubing front and back on top of what ever I could get for plate. I was thinking of putting a piece of angle iron at the front so it would dig in to help with stopping the tractor. Did you play with the chain length to take some of the draft off the tractor so they couldnt get as much traction?. Thanks for the info
 

Mark, you need a very strong rigid frame with heavy plate welded under it. For safety you want a frame at each end to "contain" your blocks. you don't need to go looking for weight, a properly built "boat" will be plenty heavy enough. It is a boat not a sled. Forget about anything underneath to make it harder to pull. It will just cause your boat to turn into a submarine which no one will appreciate. Length of chain varies from one area to another. In my area they are usually four feet. Longer chain results in less weight needed to stop the tractors. different track conditions can cause a great difference in the amount of weight that will be pulled.
 
For how much weight, it depends on several things. Track condition makes a big difference. I've seen a 2k lb difference in weight required to stop the 4500lb class depending on how wet or dry the track is.
We don't do any track prep before a pull so it could be bone dry or a bit wet. Just another factor to make it more challenging.

Chain length is another big one.

Our sled is 40+ years old, it's just a sheet of sheet metal with some channel welded to the sides and some 8' pipe on the ends. It would probably be better to be stiffer cause it flexes pretty good but gets the job done just fine. It's less than 1/8" thick, I'd bet it's half the thickness it was 40 years ago due to wear and rust!
 

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