Corrugated Plastic Sleds: Free, Fast, and Easy to Make

In this instructable I'll show you how I make sleds out of corrugated plastic. They take less than 10 minutes to make and are faster than any commercially sold sled I've ran into on the hills over the years. Chances are you can score some corrugated plastic for free from an old marketing campaign or event. You can watch the youtube video and follow along step by step with this instructable.

Supplies

• Corrugated Plastic: This comes in all shapes and sizes if you are recycling it, the larger the piece the bigger the sled can be. Giant sleds are extra fun.
• A marker
• Scissors or knife
• Some rope or cordage of some kind. I cut a small length of paracord I had bought for another project.
• Something to crease the corrugated plastic with, I've used an old wooden cooking utensil before but upgraded to a screen roller.
• A square/measuring tape to mark you lines. This is kind of optional as the dimensions are not crucial on these sleds.
• Optional: A heatgun or hair dryer. For the corrugated plastic that is about 4 mm thick you can probably get by without heat, if you start working with the 12 mm corrugated plastic the heat will be needed as it is too thick to crease by hand.
• Optional: A piece of wood or something to act as a press brake guide for bending the corrugated plastic. I ended up not using it on this thin sled but it was very useful when I made the giant sled out of the 12 mm corrugated plastic.

Step 1: Draw the Layout Lines

1. In the 1st picture I draw a line about 6 inches from the front of sled. You could make this larger, the further back this line is from the front of the sled the more wind/snow protection you will get riding down hill.
2. In the 2nd and 3rd picture I draw a line about 4 inches from the side of the sled on either side. Since the material has corrugations running this direction you could follow those instead of drawing lines. The marker lines help to visually explain the idea better for instructional purposes.

Step 2: Bending the Sheet

1. In the 1st picture I show the two tools I have used for creasing corrugated plastic. On the left is a old wooden cooking utensil. Eventually it cracked and I tried to tape it together before finally upgrading to the window screen roller. The wooden utensil lasted a long time and I have made a lot of stuff from corrugated plastic with it, a collection of corrugated plastic instructables can be found HERE.
2. In the 2nd and 3rd picture I crease and fold the front of the sled. Bending it back and forth a few times will help it to loosen up if it is too stiff and wants to lay flat. Most sheets of this are made from polypropylene which is an extremely tough plastic that is great for making living hinges so you don't have to worry about it getting fatigued/cracking from the bending.
3. The 4th through 8th picture I crease and fold the sidewalls of the sled like I did the front.

Step 3: Cutting the Tabs

1. In the first two pictures I cut from the front of the sled along the sidewall lines until I meet up with the front crease.
2. In the 3rd and 4th pictures I fold the tabs up and towards the middle of the sled at roughly a 45 degree angle, now the sled shape is starting to take form.

Step 4: Adding the Rope

1. In the first two pictures I mark out two sets of two holes. Where each set of holes overlaps will be our connecting point between the front and side flaps.
2. In the 3rd and 4th picture I punch holes through the corrugated plastic with scissors, using the four marker dots as guides.
3. In the 5th and 6th picture I thread some paracord through the holes and tie a tight knot. Tight knots are important because the knots are the only fasteners giving the sled its shape.
4. In the last picture I test sit in the sled and make sure I have a good length rope handle.

Step 5: Test Run, Longevity, and Other Uses

1. The test runs I did on the new sled were very successful despite us having a bit of a heat wave that melted some snow. It's a little big longer than most sleds so you could fit three people on it easily if you wanted to. One of the advantages of a larger sled is that they are faster when they only have one person in them.
2. Longevity: These sleds last a very long time. The three sleds on the left in the final picture have been around 4 or 5 years and seen lots of use. Most plastic sleds from the stores crack easily in the cold and don't last as many seasons. The flexibility of these sleds and ability to form living hinges makes them a lot harder to crack in the cold. The giant sled is in the worst condition of the bunch since its the fastest and some evacuations have been made before it hit a fence line. The reason the giant sled is so fast is because it rides the peaks of the snow and doesn't get slowed down or dig much of a path when one persons weight is spread over such a large area.
3. The giant sled also gets year round use as a garden tool, that is why it's so dirty! I use it to haul leaves to a pile in the corner of the yard or set it by an area i'm weeding to throw what I pull out on it. I've also used this sled for double digging garden beds and moving some soil, while it doesn't have the weight capacity of a wheel barrow it is nice to not lift soil that high and into the barrow.

I hope you learned something from this instructable and found it interesting! Corrugated plastic is often viewed as a disposable material but it is a very useful when it comes to upcycling and at the end of its upcycled life you can still recycle it.