sounds good marts!
john swenson- That's kinda my thought too, you can adjust the steel angle and location of uhmw guides to fit any tire and then make up a whole batch that way. It's very simple, but.......takes for damn ever. That's the only real downside, but for a do-it-yourselfer it works well. The main width/design factor is the contact width of the steel on the ground..because your guides are connected to this. For flat ground or snow, a wide contact patch is okay, but when you start getting on lumpy ground, a very wide contact patch is leveraged around by the ground...and therefore your guides get leveraged around too. An ideal design shape is one that is rigid between the tires, but additional width outboard of that- isn't affected by leverage, or it is a separate bolt-on and alllowed to flex or move w/o tilting the main tire-guide area. Mudd-ox uses narrow rigid guides on their wide rubber track.
Just be cautious of that when you're going over really crappy ground.
My steel is 1" x 1" 3/16" thick, and I haven't bent a single one yet. It's 18" wide on the ground. I considered using 1/4", but so far I think that would be overkill.