howtomakeanicerink

There is a lot that goes into making ice. Everyone is pretty much capable of making ice, the next step is making Good Ice. Good Ice consists of a smooth hard ice surface that is level and consistant. Two subjects that we will be talking about are indoor ice and outdoor ice. We will explain how to make the ice and different techniques needed to maintain it.

INDOOR ICE

Indoor Ice needs to be made in a series of steps. The first is to get your compressors running and get a return temperature of 20 degrees or lower or a surface temperature of 32 derees or lower, preferably lower. The colder your surface temperature the faster you will be able to work and the less likely of a humidity problem. If you are able to control the humidity within your building, keeping it below 60% will hinder condensation. The type of water needed is also very important. You would like to have deionized water, free of unwanted particles. This is an expensive process and one that is more of a luxury than a neccesity. Now lets get on to making ice.

Make sure your surface is well swepted and cleaned of any debrie. It's useful to use a floor sweeping compound to help get all the dust and dirt up. The next step consists of a light spraying of water. This helps secure any debrie left over to the concreate. Next comes a white wash consisting of a product called Lumin Ice. It is a white powder mixed in with cold water and applied to this thin surface. Two layers of white wash need to be applied. This will ensure you a nice white surface that is consistant through-out the rink. The fourth layer will consist of a flooding of cold water through a two inch hose. This layer needs to be about an eighth of an inch thick. The fifth step will consist of another flooding of the ice. This layer is about an eight of an inch thick as well and cold water is again applied. With five layers on the ice now you are hoping to have about a quarter to three eights of an inch of ice. These first five steps will take about eight to twelve hours to put on and freeze. All arenas are different so be sure to allow for variations. The ideal is that the ice is now level through-out the arena. You are hoping that the low levels are filled to match the high levels. No matter how good your concreate is you will have high and low spots in your rink. Since your ice is level now when you put your lines down you'll be able to judge the thickness by the amount of ice over the lines. This is a quick referrence by judging the amount of haze or lack of haze over the lines. Now your ready for lines.

There are two methods to put lines on. One consists of painting lines, the other is a paper product made of a tissue like paper. For either technique you will need a tape measure at least two hundred feet long, string of the same length. A two by four at least sixteen feet long, three nails pounded into the board for a center spot and two fifteen feet away to outline the circles. A utility blade for the paper. Painting supplies consist of, two inch sash brushes, or foam brushes, and a putty knife to erase mistakes and a bucket to hold the paint. The paint is a tempered paint and the tissue paper is made of a none running ink. You will also need a map of the official dimensions for a hockey arena.

Painting the surface consists of scratching out the lines on the ice and filling in the the areas between the lines you have scratched. The first lines we start with are the end lines. Most rinks have the lines going up the dashers so it is usually easy to just to snap a line and scratch it out. If they are not on the dasher boards I suggest you find the middle of the arena and work from the center line out. You will have to take measurements and determine the best place to lay your lines. Not all arenas are square and follow the standared measurements. After the center line and two endlines you will want to find the center the rink running lengthwise. This measurement will then determine how you will lay-out your face-off circles. We use the two by four with nails to determine where to place our lines. The two-by-four lets us make a perfect circle, we fell it's superior to using a string. After laying out your line you will then want to paint them. Make sure that all lines are the proper color.

We like to use the tissue paper for our lines. We feel that it gives us leeway when "melting out lines" for a clean and clear look latter in the season. Sometimes then you melt-out lines with paint you might get too close to the paint and end up washing away some paint. The draw back to using the paper is you have to put it down twice inorder to get a good solid color. This takes time but not much more because most of your time is used up getting your lines down the first time. The supplies needed to put lines down with tissue papaer are large spray bottles, the kind used for stain or pesticide applications around the home. Squigges used to get air bubbles out and hot water used as a glue to secure the lines. After scratching out your lines you want to spray a light mist of water on the ice. Too much hot water and your paper will begin to float. Put your paper down immediately then cover with hot water throughly. The use the squaiggie to get all air bubbles out. If you have air bubbles build up use the hot water to enable you to work with the ice. One person should be spraying, one person laying paper then another person on the squiggie. After all the lines are down you will want to continue to spray lightly with water inorder to build a layer to cover to ensure that when you flood your lines are safely down.

If you would like to add any graphics in the ice the time to do that is when your putting down lines. However you can do it at a later date by using an edger to scrape away the ice in the place you want to place the graphics and fill it with a little water to level it. Make sure that it is down far enough in your ice to safe from the ice resurfacer. There are two techniques when making the graphics also. They are also the paint and paper method. If you would like to do it in house it is pretty easy to do. You will need a copy of the graphics on overhead plastic and an overhead projector. We use the paper method as we feel it is easier to work with and lets us get it the way we want it before we have to go out on the ice and use it. We have used poster board as the paper comes in a variety of colors and the ink does not run. We use the projector and show the image the size we would like it on a wall were we can trace it out. We then cut it out and place it in the ice like the paper lines we put in. This adds a lot of character and can add some money to the advertiseing budget. It's not hard to do and most computers and printers can aid you in this technique.

The next step is to flood with cold water using a two inch hose. Try and cover the lines with an eighth of an inch of water and repeat the laying of paper. After this is done you will want to flood in layers with cold water and your two inch hose until you get between an inch and an inch and an eight of ice. This is the ideal for maintaining a safe and ecconomical sheet of ice. This allows you to work with your ice in terms of temperature more easily and won't tax your compressors. Ice too thick will be hard to control temperature wise and ice too thin has the ability to damage your lines, one thing you don't want to have happen.

The last part of making an ice rink is to maintain the ice temperature. For hockey players the ideal temperature for return coolant should be between 16 and 18 degrees. This make the ice quite hard and tends to make the ice last longer. Less snow is built up and the surface will tend to have fewer nicks and and cuts and allow the puck to slide later in the period or practice. The temperature for figure skaters is a return temperature of 20 to 22 degrees. This enables skaters to dig into the ice and help cushion landings.

This is a little idea of how to make an indoor ice rink. Their are many different variables that come into play for all arenas. Only time and experience will ensure you a nice sheet of ice. The most important part of a nice rink of is how to maintain your sheet of ice.

OUTDOOR ICE

Making a sheet of outdoor ice consist of working with the elements. Your ideal spot will be a flat area sheltered from both sun and wind and wishfully snow. You will also have an area that you can push the snow off the rink into. Take into mind the best and easiest way to remove excess snow and where you want to push it. Next you want to consider the surface your putting your rink on. A sandy surface is ideal, you will avoid mking a lot of mud in the spring. Try to avoid rocky areas as the rocks can be brought to the surface, and if your lucky enough to use an ice resurfacer you know what kind of damage this can do to blades. Building ice on grass is tough on the lawn for the first part of spring, but it will recover. After considering the area the next step is to start making ice.

You can only make ice the the temperature is below 32 degrees. The colder the better. Also realize that it might be below 32 degrees but if your in the sun light this will tend to heat your sheet up and slow the freezing down. It's always been practical for us to make a rink when we know we will have temperatures well below freezing and for a few days in a row. After you have the correct conditions you may start making ice. An ideal way to make ice is to have a large tarp as your base. This will prevent the water from seeping into the ground. The larger the tarp, the larger the rink. You would like this tarp to be silver, or white. Any other color obsorbs sun light and will melt your ice earlier than ususal. There are companies out there that specialize in this and they are easy to find. Please go to housegoalies manufactures to find more information. If you don't have a tarp, the next best thing is to make a base that will hold water. You would like to have a good layer of snow that you can compact down to form a nice base. Using a tractor with big wheels is ideal. After squishing down your snow you next want to put a border around the ice. You can do this by using a number of two by fours or by packing snow around the edge and making your own damn of ice. You will need to mist this snow inorder to make it into ice. Which brings us to the next part. You must mist down the packed snow. DO NOT FLOOD. No matter how cold it is and how nice your base is you must sprinkle your packed snow or tarp in order to make a layer of ice to eventually flood. You must build up a slush inorder for it to freeze. To much water and it will leak away. Make a nice slush to feeze into ice. This is what will hold your water when flooding. Lawn sprinklers work great for this, just make sure you keep the sprinkler moving.

After creating your slush bath to hold water you want to have a very cold snowless night to flood. Go ahead and flood the rink. If and when you have leaks patch them with slush. The same goes with any air pockets. Break them up and fill them with slush. Continune to flood your rink as the thicker you get the ice the longer it will last into the spring. Always flood when there is no snow, this will ensure a smooth surface. The next important part of having a good outdoor rink is maintaing it. Please check out maintaining your outdoor rink. Have fun. This is a great project for a family, neighboorhood or community.