how to make cheapy Sand tracks/ladders/mats/whatevers.....(offsite image warnings)

[Blknight.aus]

Ok before I get into this these things are only to be used as sand matts or mud matts they are a traction enhancing device and thats it.. no using them as ground anchors, bridges, ramps or anything else thats not specifically "back up as far as you can lay it on the ground in the wheel tracks and hit it" type work.

They wont last forever and are only ever going to be as good as your original crates/rope/workmanship...

so lets get to it and make up some panels to make a sand ladder.....

first go raid the wifes shoe rack
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/662.jpg

and grab one of these

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/663.jpg

and these

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/664.jpg

one jigsaw,one knife and about 20 feet of rope, I used telstra's blue yellow stuff as It can be had for nix, By the book they use this stuff to pull a cable once and turf it, go find some guys pulling cable and ask for the old stuff.

now take mr jigsaw and introduce him to mr "about to be a sandladder" milk crate.

you need to make 5 (8 if your not comfortable with turning the milk crate under the saw while cutting) cuts

the first 4 are on the panels like this
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/665.jpg
looking at these images the panel on the left thats standing vertical will have the thick edge and the panel on the right (the one Im pressing down) will be the thin edge.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/666.jpg
and the last ones are to get the base off
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/667.jpg
when cutting the bottom off if you start with the saw on the edge and finish the cut with it angled like this https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/668.jpg
you'll find the saw doesnt jump at you.
when your done with that you shoudl have 4 panels and a base
the panels will ahve one thick edge and one skinny edge
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/669.jpg
like that, the thick edge needs to be the front edge of the panel when you put it down on the ground.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/670.jpg

thats the 5 panels laid out ready to sew together

[Blknight.aus]

Sewing it up.....

ok your going to need 3 7 foot lenghts of rope and 1 10foot length

lay your pads out as your going to sew them up, turn them all over and then start out with a loop around one side of one pad.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/654.jpg
then pass it under the pads and bring it back through the loop
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/655.jpg
then make a halfhitch heading towards the center of the crate
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/656.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/657.jpg
snig it down and keep going
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/658.jpg
once you get to the end, add a halfhitch around the outside edge of a panel and head back
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/659.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/660.jpg
you'll notice that all the crossovers of the rope lay in the vally made by the overlap of the 2 pads. thats important for longevity of the rope when you use it.
with the last panel start out the same way but just do one halfhitch in every hole in the bottom of the milk crate
(you can see in the last image that bottom part of the crate has a lot more loops in it)
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/661.jpg

a couple of things to note there are some little attention to detail things that can make a lot if difference to the durability of this thing

1. the stronger part of your side pads needs to be on top and at the front of the layout when its on the ground as your going to use it. The wheel will make short work of the skinny side if its on top.
2. you should always start out with the base closest to the tyre.
3. the knots in the rope and any place the rope crosses itself should be in the protected area of the overlap.
4. be sure before you try to use it that your tyre pressures are down.
5. use rope not wire (unless thats all you have) as wire can damage the tyre or your hand
6. If your going to add a drag up rope (to make it easy to recover) make them short loops laced through the handles of the sides and make sure that you lay them to the outside of the track (this means you have to make a left hand and right hand track) as the rope can snag on the underside of the vehicle and tangle the track up.
7. you can increase the effective ness of these by adding stiffening ropes to the underside of the pads that try to turn the track into an arch when it sits naturally on the ground.
8. it gets better if you lay one track on top of the other with the "hinges" offset into the middle of the adjacent pad and zip tie the lot together (or rope it) with the grippy sides facing out.
9. some milk crates float... dont use these the plastic is fairly soft.
10. If you get white parts in the plastic when youve used them then that part is damaged and might break later leaving a sharp edge for you to cut your hands on.

Best of luck.....

---edit----

looking at the last pic.. IF you were to add a rope to the handle side of this on it would be a left side track if you were recovering forwards and a right side if recovering backwards... IF you plan on making a left and right handed set of these then handedness will be decided when you cut them up... with the crate on its side and the bottom furthest from you If you cut to the right hand side of the side panels for the initial cut (one cut per side) then you are making a left side track (the same as what Ive done) If you cut to the left hand side of the crate then you will be making a right hand site track.

[shorty943]

Simple, cheap, effective.

Good idea Dave. I think I'll make me some of those too.

I just happen to live half way up a bloody great big sand hill.
I'm in that wait stage of "Hurry up and wait", with my Landy.

That will keep me off the street, and out of strife, for a couple of hours.


Thank's mate.:D

[Outlaw]

Great work Dave and quicky done too :D

But you could of sanded back the rough edges a bit couldn't you???? :p

[waynep]

i like your solar powered rock

[Blknight.aus]

the solar powered rock is one of those things that we got off of the cheapy damaged items bin at kmart....

theres at least 10 other items in the various pics that fit into the catagory of got it for next to nothing from the broken cart and it works fine or needed about 30 seconds worth of repairs.

[HangOver]

so when are you going to get bogged to test them out and let us know how they worked? ;)

[cucinadio]

mate as i said this morn "your a genious" im makeing some tomorrow first thing

if anyone one wants milk crates l know where to get s%^$ loads



cheers

[Blknight.aus]

those crates come from places like


garage sales, they come with other jun.. umm stuff we want to buy in them
auctions for the same reason
when we go camping if we find em we keep em
side of the road
tips


bread crates also work quite well same concept but you need to cut the thing in half lenghtways they are a bit harder to stow and turn out a bit longer than those ones.

Stowing them depends on how you tie them up. The half hitching I used in this one gives the best result for debogging but is the hardest to store as its not overly flexable, It also uses close to the least amount of rope, which was important in this case as I only had about 20 feet spare on the roll (the roll in pic #3 was full before xmas)

If Im carrying them and I dont have the trailer (ie traveling from a campsite to an offroad run) then they are either under the bed in the back, down beside the bed between the fridge and the bedframe or laid out on the floor of the back seat. If im offroad then they get stowed outside on the SIII i had some elasticated straps that would let them sit on the roof (the only thing I ever roof mounted) or theyd go behind the barwork.

If you make up a pair of simple hooks that are sort of like a rounded off W you can hang 2 from the roo bar and with a pair of occy straps loop 2 more together and hang them from the spare. Ive only got the one on hand but Im sure you can work out how to do it from the pics.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/652.jpg
no, it doesnt overly effect engine cooling, but youd want to watch the gauge a bit closer if you were having a hard time of it.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2008/01/653.jpg
occystrap the second one to the bottom and your set.



by changing the sewing of them from the halfhitches to a figure 8 (guessing you'll want pics of that too huh?)they become much more foldable and a pair will fold up into a box about the same size as a milk crate but Ive found that they are a fair bit harder to pull up if your using them in mud, but they work really well in sand and become some 6-8 inches longer than the one that IVe shown.

when you pull these ones out of the mud Ive found that trying to pull them back over themselves starting at the end that you put closest to the tyre when you were stuck works best.

(make a3-4 foot long metal hook with a t handle like a butchers meat hook for even easier retraction)

[cucinadio]

could u use large zip ties?????

cheers

[shorty943]

That "half-hitching" is more properly known as "Marlin Hitching" in the Navy.
When but a mere Sea Pup, serving on the last of the WW2 destroyers, sleeping in the old messdecks and hammocks. We Marlin Hitched our hammocks up and stowed them in the Hammock Rack in the corner of the messdeck.

And if you butt join the pieces and double hitch them you make a double fold hinge. Which can be pushed into soft wet stuff. Bugger.:mad:

Make em Dave's way, and chuck em on the roof, she'll be right.:cool:

[Blknight.aus]

Usually I find that the second and 3rd panels are the ones that cop most of the wear and tear if your using these things properly once you fubar a track its simply a case of untying whats left of it and adding it to an existing track or cutting up another crate to replace the lost panels.

These are most effective if you can back up about the length of the bottom panel (which shoudl be the first one you lay) do a little infilling or digging so that it has a flat surface to sit on then panels 2+3 should be the ones on the incline and 4+5 should be level on the top let the vehicle ease forwards in second low till the center of the wheel is over the lip of the bottom panel and then give it some noise providing youve got all 4 wheels set up right and the belly isnt dragging you should come out on the first go (and then promptly stop again when the rear wheels fall into the front wheel holes)

if your only spinning one wheel down on each axle (IE you dont have TC or lockers, Dont be lazy, lay them out for all 4 wheels or when you get grip on the side thats already down you're just going to spin the other 2 in.

[Blknight.aus]

could u use large zip ties?????

cheers

you can (thats what I first tried) but they usually only last about 1 or 2 recoveries and you need about 10 per joint or the stress of the wheel on them just rips em to shreds....

(recheck the initial posts I added some other helpful info i didnt think of in the first run through (bad habit I know))

[graceysdad]

A few years ago I picked up a pair of ww2 sand / mud matts which were essentially long lenghts of canvas with timber slats sewn in every 10 inches or so, they were double sided and were the perfect accoutrement for my old Ford ute sadly I let them go with the ute, although canvas is expensive today they would be so easy to make however a touch bulky to store, military vehicles generally had a exterior bracket to hold them.

[Blknight.aus]

Ive seen them and the next installment of this thread will see the construction of the PVC pipe and shadecloth type.

[DiscoDave]

Nice tut Dave! I'm particularly impressed how you colour-coded the Sand Ladder to your vehicle. :D

[wheelie77]

Great idea dave,

I have also seen somone down the beach using old conveyer belt as sand tracks with holes cut in them using a grinder... Good idea but i have no idea where you would get some conveyer belt :P

[Lotz-A-Landies]

HI

I wonder if the NEDC would approve of their crates being used in this manner? ;)

[cucinadio]

Ive seen them and the next installment of this thread will see the construction of the PVC pipe and shade cloth type.

mate the last job was great but I'm waiting for the next project :D

cheers

[Hymie]

Great idea dave,

I have also seen somone down the beach using old conveyer belt as sand tracks with holes cut in them using a grinder... Good idea but i have no idea where you would get some conveyer belt :P


Try a Quarry, we get ours from a quarry and it usually costs a slab or some other contribution to the staffs party.

[LandyAndy]

Im sure they would work fine,but the FINE for destroying the milk crates wouldnt be good."I found them at the tip" doesnt wash to well with the law if they want to get picky at the roadside rego check with them displayed on the bullbar.
I like the version Robert and Martine,the French couple touring the world in their Defender made.
You get the rubber/wire type of door mat made from old tyres,cut them in half down the centre and lash together end to end with wire.Even new they are cheap,and have seen them for 50 cents each at garage sales and swapmeets.
They roll up nicely and can still be used around the campsite for the original purpose.
Andrew

[HangOver]

interesting thread, next time I see some cheap door mats I think I'll buy a few. I also like the idea of the conveyor belt, (and can be had from the salvage yard on gnangara road) but you think it would be smooth and slippy?
Maybe slats cut length ways may work better?

Doors mats $2, Maxtrax $200 hmmm :D