Home made snowshoes

>From a discussion on Scouts-LDS

Paul H. Brown, KD4UPD
I used to be an Antelope, WB 82-66
Pack Committee Chairman, Unit Commissioner, Roundtable Commissioner
George Washington District, National Capital Area Council, BSA

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 20 Dec 1996 09:30:10 -0700
From: Lamar Kirby <LKIRBY@corel.com>
To: scouts-lds@tagus.com
Subject: Snowshoes -Reply

I just finished mine.

For boys you take a 10' long pieces of +" conduit
and cut it in half.

Use a conduit bender and bend a 90deg curve on
both sides of the center mark so you get a "U".

Bend the tail-end around so they over lap a
little, we cut off about an inch of the ends to
make a slight taper to the back of the shoe, Use a
conduit joint to hold the ends together, position
the screws in the inside if the shoe.

Bend the toe up a little where the side meets the
rounding of the toe part. (Did you get that????)

Now you have a frame (DO NOT DRILL HOLES IN IT,
that will weaken the pipe) Instead, take rope, 50
feet long (we used 1/4 polypro rope, but I like
the nylon parachute cord idea) and tie a Larks
Head knot using the center of the rope on the side
of the shoe about where you toe will be, in other
words about 3/4 the way up from the back.

You should have a show shoe frame with a larks
head knot and equal length ropes.

Now, using one end of the rope, tie another larks
head about an inch towards the back and continue
with another, make them tight and to the inside of
the frame. When you get the opposite of the start
point and you have equal number of knots use the
other end of the rope and repeat around the top.
Attempt at ASCII art:

Loop
_ _ _
/ \__/ \__/ \__/
---)(---)(---)(--- Conduit
---||---||---||---
Larks
Head

(That might not have helped.)

What you should have is a Frame that is a series
of knots and tight loops around the inside of the
shoe.

NOW, take the longest end (the one that went
around the TOE) and string it back and forth down
to the heel and the weave it back up and down so
you have a mesh covering the back 3/4 of the shoe.
The place where your boot toe will go will be
curved back towards the heel a bit, keep it tight.

Now repeat for the toe. You should have a
football shaped hole about 4"-6" wide. This is
where the movement of the boot goes. I have
devised a binding out of tire inner-tube rubber
but I can't explain it in words nor have I tested
it.

I am going camping tonight up past Aspen Grove in
Utah County, Utah and test them out with my
scouts. When I work out any bugs and re-write
this so it makes sense (about the time the snow
will melt away) I will publish the plans on the
web at my Scout Site:

Http://www.uvol.com/Scouts/

It will look like my "stove plans" under the
program helps section. To help me get motivated
to help other Please fill out the let us know form
and remind me to put the snow-shoe plans up before
spring.

LaMar Kirby
Scout Master
Troop 445, Orem Ut
Utah National Park Council
http://www.uvol.com/Scouts/

>>> Ross, Matthew <mross@plix.com> 12/19/96
02:08pm >>>
Has anyone had any experence making snow shoes out
of Electrical Conduit
thanks
Matty Ross
P.O. Box 584
Chewelah WA 99109-0584
mross@plix.com
http://www.plix.com/~users/mross/
I used to be a Beaver, a good old Beaver too...
W1-611-87

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