Making Snow Shoes | How To Shape PVC Pipe

Rather than buying a set of webs for an upcoming adventure, I decided to make some. What follows is the tale

[@Crusty_Camper]

That was great. A very honest demo of how to do this and some of the problems.

[@JM-nh8yp]

I just made my first one today! I learned from your mistakes, and the first one was successful. For mine, I simply pounded nails around my pencil drawing and used a hinge for the angled toe portion. The nails worked great as a form. Fast, simple and no wood cutting at all. My electric oven heated the sand easily and evenly in about 15 minutes.

[@lumberjackinit6450]

Smart

[@Manocooper]

The jig is up. Zach is a genius. Nice job.

[@ZackOfAllTrades]

Ha! not by a long shot, although I've been known to stand on the shoulders of a few from time to time. Thanks for your kind words, Matt and thanks for your time.

[@DanielBacaMaker]

I'm going to have to use this trick to make new frames for shading the vegetable boxes in summer. Excellent work!

[@DBacaMaker]

Ditto!

[@ZackOfAllTrades]

lol I see what you did there. Thanks a bunch for watching, Dan

[@fourbirdstos]

This was great man. I love that you stuck with it. Hopefully they worked out for you. I was a little skeptical about the screw idea.

[@mog-gyveroneill2500]

PVC can be softened with a hair dryer and shape it at the middle round a paint can, attach long ends and repeat hair dryer to complete shape. No sand, no mess! X

[@cluek9780]

Zack, only a HACK does shop work without safety glasses!

[@brianfitzgerald1235]

I appreciate you making the videos.

[@ZackOfAllTrades]

And I appreciate you continuing to watch them!

[@brianfitzgerald1235]

as always Zack very entertaining.

[@ZackOfAllTrades]

Thanks Brian, I appreciate you watching!

[@secretmoonshinestreamvods9200]

I too, am named Zack, am a man of all trades, and I have a FINE mustache.

[@richardpeterson3753]

and a tip on heating that stuff, cardboard and aluminum foil makes a fairly simple jig to soften large lengths of PVC. trick I picked up from Nick, aka the backyard bowyer. then all you do is run the heat gun on it

[@JM-nh8yp]

I missed what kind of wood you used? Didnt know of its just pine? Did you seal or waterproof it at all? If not, has it held up?

[@davidsmith3513]

Excellent! I really enjoyed it. Looks like 1" pipe?

[@willemkossen]

Interesting method.

[@ZackOfAllTrades]

I thought so, and it was really striking how flexible the pipe got (really like rope) once it was heated through. Now to figure out what else to make with PVC.

[@richardpeterson3753]

I love the idea, in fact I momentarily had that ah ha moment when I saw this. then I remembered my PVC bow. and what it did in the cold when I drew it back. it nearly exploded for lack of better terms. now, I understand this won't go under as much stress, but it will need to support body weight, and be directly in the very shit that will make it as brittle as glass, cold. not sure exactly how this would behave in snow. so if we can get a good video on a completed pair with stress tests in some pretty cold weather, and over moderately rough terrain, it would make me feel better about attempting this.

[@glennlockwood7608]

I'm an adult about 200 pounds. Used these down to the teens. Use electric conduit so it doesn't degrade from ultraviolet as badly. PVC has adequate strength down to about -20F. So flexing isn't too risky. But it has low impact strength even at room temperature. As a practical matter they are unlikely to break walking on them in snow. The bending forces are pretty evenly distributed. But I wouldn't use them to whack on anything.

[@rawbacon]

Cool

[@bowermanwinburn6723]

Plans from stodoys help solve technical problems.