Ski Sled: Two 10 ft Ash Ski Runners With a Rocker, Under a Three-Board Top (Boy Mechanic, 1919)

"The skis, or runners, are cut 10 ft. long and 6 in. wide, from 1-in. ash boards that are straight-grained."

Cut two runners 10 ft long and 6 in wide from straight-grained 1 in ash. Where the curve will be, plane about 1/4 in off the upper side, but not at the very tip, so the skis bend more easily.

If steaming is not handy, boil the skis with at least 1-1/2 ft of the points under water and the vessel covered so little steam escapes, for at least one hour. Take them out, put them side by side in the bending blocks at once and bend with slow, even pressure; weight the long ends and leave them 8 or 10 hours to dry. Sharpen the points after bending.

For a slight rocker, make the centre knee block 6 in high and the two end blocks 5-1/2 in. Run a 1/4 in flat-head bolt through the ski, the block and the cross strip, countersinking the heads in the running surface. Make the top of three 6 in boards fastened to the crosspieces, and brace the ski tips with a 2 in strip.

From "A Ski Sled" by George J. Egelberg, in **The Boy Mechanic, Book 3**, Popular Mechanics, 1919 (Project Gutenberg 71856; checked on the archive.org scan boymechanic0003unse, p. 41). The bending-block shape and knee pieces come from his drawing. The tools and metric figures are ours.