Vintage Seigh for Christmas

I had seen this vintage sleigh in Wood magazine some time ago and I had to go searching to find it again. It was in December 1997, Issue 101 I believe that I’ve seen it somewhere else but I didn’t want to buy the article without searching further. One of the new officers at the Woodworking Club thought he might have it.

He did and he brought the magazine to me and i scanned it and created a pdf for future use and to keep from cutting up his magazine.

The sleigh was found at the Wyck, the Haines house in Northern Philadelphia. The Wyck Association provided it to Wood magazine. The one in Wood was made out of Cherry but I decided to make these out of Sapele.

I printed the plans.

And I made a brass template for the turned piece.

I filed it down.

And I put it in my mini lathe duplicator.

I failed to get the pictures of turning the spindle. Maybe later since I’m going to make about 10 for Christmas.

The runners were cut on my bandsaw. 1/16” slices, 5 thick to get a runner 5/16. I was able to bend them around the form without steam or hot water.

I stack cut the pieces 8 at a time. All pieces were 1/4” thick done by resawing and planing to thickness.

The ends had an angle and the sides had a different angle. I used my sliding table to cut all of the angles.

Sanded and did a 1/8” round over on the appropriate edges.

The under the sleigh mount for the runners needed a 14 deg angle on a dado slot.

I cut them on my new sliding table jig for the bandsaw.

I used a block of wood cut at the appropriate angle to use on the sled.

The legs had the piece cut off using a mini saw and a chisel.

Dry fitting them on the runners.

All glued up.

I broke one of the sleigh bottoms because of the squirrelly grain.

All glued up and a coat of shellac.

I made two for door prizes for the Mason Dixon Holiday Dinner for tonight. I got done with 4 hours to spare.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †