For the seat obtain a clear spruce plank ten feet long, ten inches wide, and one inch and a half thick, planed on both sides and edges. The front sled is thirty inches long and fourteen inches wide, with the sides five inches high. The rear sled is forty inches long from prow to end of runners, and is the same width and height as the front one. The sides are of hard-wood seven-eighths of an inch in thickness, and braced with cross-pieces of hard-wood two inches wide and one inch and a half thick.
Laps are cut in the top of the sides, and with screws the ends of the braces are securely held in place. Under each cross-piece and at the sides brackets must be securely fastened with screws as shown at Fig. 9, to strengthen the sides and take some of the strain from the cross-piece fastenings. Eight inches from the rear end a stout block is set in the runners through which the king-bolt passes that fastens the seat to the sled. This is of hard-wood fourteen inches long, two inches and a half wide, and four inches high at the middle, as shown in Fig. 9. A similar block two inches high is attached to the under side of the plank and bears on the lower block. Between the two blocks and on the bolt, two large, flat iron washers are placed, so that it will be an easy matter to turn the sled when there is a heavy weight on the plank.
The head of the five-eighths-inch king-bolt should be embedded in the top of the block that is fast to the plank before it is attached, and the bolt should be provided with two nuts for safety. In the summer-time, when the bob is stored away, the forward sled can be removed by unscrewing the nuts from the lower end of the bolt under the sled.
To steer the bob a hard-wood cross-bar piece is let into the runners as shown in Fig. 9. It projects six inches at each side, and foot-notches are cut at the rear edge as shown in the illustration. The rear sled is attached to the plank by means of a block and bolts.
Two triangular hard-wood blocks one inch in thickness, with the grain running vertically, are screwed fast to the inside sides of the runners as shown in Fig. 10, and through holes in the upper end a long half-inch bolt is passed from side to side. This bolt fits in a groove made at the under side of the block that is attached to the plank; and across the groove in several places straps of iron are fastened as shown in the inverted block at Fig. 11. A hinge-joint is the result, and to prevent the rear sled from dropping too far when jumping over a bump a rope should be passed under the forward cross-piece and attached to a staple driven at the under side of the plank.
The plank can be padded with hair from an old mattress and covered with a strip of carpet nailed all around the edges of the board. Cross-pieces screwed fast to the under side of the plank will serve as foot-rests, and with a coat or two of paint this bob-sled will be ready for use.
Skees
Skee running and jumping is one of the favorite winter sports in Norway and Sweden and is steadily growing in favor both in the Northern United States and in Canada. On very steep hills it is a dangerous sport, but it is perfectly safe to use the skees on either short hills or on long ones that are not too steep. Once you start you must go to the bottom, and a good skee-jumper should be as agile as a cat, for he must always land feet down when jumping.
