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I'm interested in this but never thought I could get material from a hardware store. What is it you are going to get?
Puck board works well it comes in a 4x8 sheet but check at your local arena they may have some smaller pieces you can have/buy.
I looked at ordering some UHMW plastic strips to mount wear bars on the bottom of my jet sled. I checked a few places - USPlastics, McMaster, a few other places that came up in search results. All in all it was going to cost at least 55-60 bucks to get five 1.5" strips for the sled bottom. A new sled is only about 50 bucks, so all in all I decided it wasn't worth the time messing with it. I knocked a hole in the bottom of the sled hiking in and out of a local place here last year - about a mile hike in over rocky trails, and unfortunately most of the way, there was no snow on the trail. I filled in the deep scratches and repaired the hole with fiberglass resin and mat. I figure I can make a whole bunch of repairs on that sled before it will need to be replaced, for a lot less than the plastic wear bars would cost.Bottom line, unless you can get them for super cheap or free (like someplace that processes it and has scraps they'll give away), it probably doesn't make much sense from a cost perspective.
You could probably get by with using a type of plastic trim board sold at Home depot or lowe's. I used some leftover garage door trim one time, it didn't last long but I had about 1,000 lbs on the sled. A lot of us up here use foils from the paper factory. It is a high density plastic that they dispose of for little $$'s. Used snowmobile slides work great as someone mentioned. You could ask for some at motorsport shops, they may help you out. On my jet sled magnum I just broke down and bought the shappell runner kit. As far as installation, do a search and if you're somewhat innovative you'll figure it out.
DON'T DO IT!!! Learn from my mistake! The PVC trim boards from Home Depot will last you about 500 feet over icy terrain before falling apart. The stuff isn't expensive but my time is money and it's a good few hour job to countersink the holes and bolt all the runners to the sled after heating up the front with a heat gun to allow the trim to bend to the front of the sled. Man was I upset when I saw those runners all broken up after one short pull with the snowmobile. The PVC trim board is too brittle and not strong enough.
Very good to know! The UHMW is about the toughest stuff that exists, but not as easy to find.
Smitty Sled
x2... Smitty Sled is the way to go. Pretty easy to build and they pull like a dream, and easy to replace the skis on the cheap.
But rotten if you sometimes pull the sled with a snomobile, snowdog, or ATV. I do both, a manual trudge... and the snowdog. There are often exposed rocks and sharp boulders on the trails and portages. Tough on a Smitty.
Make a tow bar...my buddy did for his quad. As for the rough terrain, throw the Smitty in the sled until you get past it.
I work for a plastic distributor and can get UHMW cut to any size and thickness. The cheapest option would be to cut strips to size without holes.I could have the pieces drilled and counterbored on a CNC router if there is a big enough demand. However I would just need to narrow down a couple standard strip sizes and determine a hole size and hole location.