Stone Boat

[gemutlich]

For those of you not from New England or "Stone Central" lol:

Stone-boat - Wikipedia

So, many years ago an old-school retired farmer friend and tractor "mentor" of mine used to use an old Oliver OC-3 (man, I wish I had that old crawler)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe..._HG_tractors_at_Antique_Powerland_in_2016.jpg

and an even older (OK, a LOT older) stone boat to skid lengths out of the woods on the snow during the Winter. Kept 'em clean that way so the sawyer had no complaints when he showed up to mill 'em off.

Leading end of the log was up on the stone boat to keep it from digging in, the rest of the length just slid right along in the snow.

We used the heck out of that old sled year 'round for all sorts of stuff, and when he moved away I thought I'd never see one around here again - until yesterday...

Bored outa my head trying to think up things to look for on CL a few days ago I punched in stone boat - which I've done a few times over a lot of years with no luck.

Surprisingly, one popped up!

Spoke with the seller, John, who has a great piece of property up in Stillwater NY (just outside of Saratoga Springs, where the lake still freezes up enough to fish off of) and is selling off a bunch of stuff.

Took advantage of the freakin' beautiful weather yesterday to make the 3 hour drive up to meet him and after visiting and BS'ing with him for a couple hours, came Home with two new members to the family:







Stone boat is every bit of 7' long, and 30" wide. Didn't know about the skidding tongs until we went out to the barn to look at the sled, but being the sensitive guy I am I couldn't bear the thought of splitting them up... Lol

Looking forward to putting them to good use one day

John turned out to be one of those rare sellers you'd like to run into again. What a great guy, and a really interesting story.

So there you have it, Stone Boat.

PS, don't tell my lovely Bride Miss Cindy I crammed that thing inside her car...

 

[/pine]

in the south they are generally known as " upside down car hoods"...or if you went to GA Tech...they're "inverted car hoods"

 

[LouNY]

Seeing one of those is almost enough to make me break out an start sweating just from the thought of walking back and forth in a plowed and spring tooth dragged field loading the danged thing with stones pulling over into the corner of the field or a muddy bar way and unloading an starting over again an again n again, dang I'm tired and going to bed.

 

[AWSubie]

I love old farm equipment, mostly because in my mind it confirms there was time before "facebook" when most people understood what it was to "make an effort". Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the time I live in (especially modern dentistry) but these days when I go out into the city I just wonder if the majority of the population will survive the next 30+ minute power outage.

 

[jaxs]

From the title I thought you had discovered Fred Flintstone's fishing canoe.

 

[3930dave]

From Back When lifting weights was done outside the gym.

Spend the day loading one of those = no problem getting to sleep....

Rgds, D.

 

[bcp]

First one I've ever seen that wasn't fully home-built. Is that front end cast iron?

Bruce

Found a refeerence:

Farm Mechanics: Machinery and Its Use to Save Hand Labor on the Farm ... - Herbert A. Shearer - Google Books

 

[oldnslo]

First one I have seen made with wood. The one we had was solid steel plate. Been a lot of years but i would say at least 30" wide 5 foot long and 3/8" thick. You just rolled the big rocks on and off, no lifting required.

 

[bcp]

Modern version:



Bruce

 

[bcp]

One like the OP, from:

Good Roads Magazine - Google Books

Bruce

 

[oldnslo]

Bruce,
Thanks for posting that info. Any idea on the time frame when this company was in business?

 

[bcp]

The first article with no picture is from a 1918 book.

The one with the drawing is from the March 1905 issue of Good Roads magazine.

Bruce

 

[Wagtail]

I've watched sledge competitions (single draft horse and matched team) at the Royal Easter Show (Homebush, Sydney).

It's a type of obstacle course. Fascinating to watch.

 

[Thomas]

I remember those well,load it up say ha and the pair oxen headed.

 

[oosik]

All the land out here where I live was "offered up" for homesteads in the 1880s. The government made the tracts (160 acres per person or 320 acres for husband and wife) available for oil exploration. Man, the only oil anybody ever found out here was when they changed oil on their model "T". There aren't even any oil derricks out here - never have been.

So the homestead immediately north of me was "proved up" by a family with five sons. They cleared many fields and built many rock walls. In my travels around this area I found an old farm implement that looks a lot like the pic that bcp posted. However, the "front attachment" shows that it was obviously pulled by farm animals. I don't know if all five sons ever went to school but I have seen the miles and miles of stone walls. They spent an awful lot of time clearing many, many 20 to 40 acre tracts within their homestead.

 

[Egon]

I can recall the stone boat made from two poplar logs cut slanted on the end with a spacer on each end to keep the logs apart. Ordinary planks were used for the top. Our area had horses pulling them.

They did see a lot of use hauling manure out of barns and of course the odd stone.

Each and every one would be custom built to the owners satisfaction.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

From the title I thought you had discovered Fred Flintstone's fishing canoe.

Hah. Me too. I though the OP might be referring to the old (unsuccessful) concrete cargo ships that we made during WWII. If I recall correctly, there is the hulk of one sticking up in Galveston Harbor.

 

[tcreeley]

In western Mass. on our farm we used this type of stone boat behind the baler. As the bales would be ready to drop we'd walk the planks up to get the bales and back, stacking them sideways. We'd drop off the bales in the same spot where the guys running the truck to the barn would pick them up.

But in the woods when we were cutting trees for the saw mill we used one of these boats we made and hauled over the snow with a crawler.

 

[fried1765]

I can recall the stone boat made from two poplar logs cut slanted on the end with a spacer on each end to keep the logs apart. Ordinary planks were used for the top. Our area had horses pulling them.

They did see a lot of use hauling manure out of barns and of course the odd stone.

Each and every one would be custom built to the owners satisfaction.

"and of course the odd stone"
"odd stone".... in Nova Scotia?
Are you in "the valley"?
Seems like most everywhere else in NS is ALL stone!

 

[GLyford]

I made one suitable for use with a garden tractor from a few scraps of deck planking and a section of pallet racking upright "unbent" to form a 45. It has been sitting in one spot in the dirt long enough that I need to replace the deck boards, but I find it very handy when relocating shrubs (why yes, my wife is a gardener, how could you tell). Dig around shrub, then tilt over to one side and jam sled under. Chain shrub to sled. Winch sled onto tilt flatbed garden cart with come-along. Drive to new location and reverse procedure. If it is a section of yard where ruts don't matter, the cart isn't needed.

I based mine (about 2'x3') on one my Dad had growing up, for use with his AC-B and Farmall Regular (30"x5' like most of the others mentioned here) but his had a front piece that was a semicircle of 1/4" steel with a 1" lip facing up. I suspect it may have been an old piece of boiler.