Box Scraper Box Blade Used as Ice Resurfacer?

[PA hayseed]

if the area is just for skating, then drilling holes may not be an issue for you. If people are going to play hockey on it, that is a different story. I can't tell you how many pucks my friends and I lost down ice fishing holes.

The problem we ran into with the sump pump method is the air pocket that you can create on a pond, by pumping water out from under the ice and pumping on top. If the pond is not refilling itself from a source, it would be an issue.

We used to use a 4 wheeler and plow, bring a couple of 55 gal drums and a squeege. The ice freezes level, so just squeege to fill in the ruts. I would think a box blade with one sharp side, and one rubber coated side would be fine. Zambonis use hot water in rinks.

Good luck. My experience is if it is not indoors, or covered, you will work on it everytime it gets a little warm and the snow blows onto it. Nothing like skating into that stuff, also stops a puck dead.

 

[john_bud]

If you want to use the box blade for ice scraping, it should work, with a modification or two.

The front blade sits lower than the side rails. Build some wooden or PVC sheaths to go around the sides and raise them up to give you the cut you want.

Add two cross bars between the side rails in front of the cutting edge. Fill the space between them with water after you've got it cut smooth. Run a hose down to it from your 55 gal barrel and regulate the flow to a trickle matched to the water dep rate / tractor speed. This deal may be a separate "shoe" placed under the box blade so the weight of the box holds it down tight further polishing the ice.

Just my $0.02.


Go Packers!

jb

 

[Tig]

I did a quick search and found this.
Nice little home made zamboni.

 

[sandman2234]

I should probably stay out of this discussion, but wanted to suggest something, that might not matter, but could make a difference.

A boxblade when it meets a groove/crack will drop down into the crack if it is a wide enough for one end to drop into the hole. I encounter this a lot on a roadway that the water cuts ruts in it from side to side. If the boxblade were angled so it would cross the crack/rut gradually instead of an "all at once", it wouldn't drop into the hole/crack/rut.
Something that you might look at before buying a boxblade would be one of the driveway graders, such as Dura-Grader, Roadboss, etc. The dual angled blades would allow for the problem I mentioned plus give a better scrape. The longer runners allow for a smoother glide path, that might be attained by adding guide wheels to the back of a boxblade. However, the guide wheels might be a problem by making tracks in the fresh h2o/ice you're depositing.
David from jax