Wow, that is awesome. We will have a shop on an inland lake for next winter where we plan on doing something like that. Yours is a very minimalist built -- must be exciting to ride when it gets haulin'. Can you describe the build a little -- what kind of blades and how you mounted them etc.?
Its not a veryhard thing to build. The frame is a high quality pine. If you can get it, I might recommend Spruce, which is what the DN ice boats are made of, but I managed with that I found at Home Depot. The cross beam I made by laminating two boards together with blocks under the ends and weight in the middle to give it the bow shape. I added some vertical walls to the middle beam for stiffness. The runners are angle irons I also got at Home Depot. I had to learn arc welding for the forward runner, to connect a vertical steering shaft to it. That goes through a wheel hub and is connected to the foot steering lever by cables. The seat is light luan wall panelling with soft light foam cusions, and is bolted to both the cross beam and the central beam of the boat to give it a bit more rigidity.
SaulOhio wrote:They are called angle irons, but I think they are carbon steel, and zinc plated.
it's probably just zinc plated plain carbon 304 steel about 30 HRC. Tool grade stainless steel by comparison (like used in hockey blades) is 60 HRC, so it is something like 4 times harder will still only last a matter of hours before you should sharpen it. Haven't sharpened my ice board in a couple weeks, waiting to see if we get any more decent black ice before ice out.
I think regular iceboats use plain stainless steel, which is still twice as hard as carbon steel.
edt: Nice little ice board there. Do you have pictures of it? Hard to see it in that tiny little clip.
I am thinking of making something that can easily go amphibious, with a large enough surface area to plane over water easily, but with steel edges to handle ice well.
SaulOhio wrote:edt: Nice little ice board there. Do you have pictures of it? Hard to see it in that tiny little clip. I am thinking of making something that can easily go amphibious, with a large enough surface area to plane over water easily, but with steel edges to handle ice well.
I have pictures somewhere. For what purpose do you want an amphibious board? You can do the ice / water / ice / snow transition on a snowboard with a wetsuit on. But for water it's better to have a dedicated twintip, for ice a dedicated iceboard and for snow a regular snowboard. Skis are fine for doing all three, ice, snow and water but are not ideal for water or ice. The blades to hold onto ice create enough friction in the water that you will not find it that fun.
It's like buying a James Bond car that can drive underwater like a submarine, fun in the movies but not so good in real life.
SaulOhio wrote:edt: Nice little ice board there. Do you have pictures of it? Hard to see it in that tiny little clip. I am thinking of making something that can easily go amphibious, with a large enough surface area to plane over water easily, but with steel edges to handle ice well.
I have pictures somewhere. For what purpose do you want an amphibious board? You can do the ice / water / ice / snow transition on a snowboard with a wetsuit on. But for water it's better to have a dedicated twintip, for ice a dedicated iceboard and for snow a regular snowboard. Skis are fine for doing all three, ice, snow and water but are not ideal for water or ice. The blades to hold onto ice create enough friction in the water that you will not find it that fun.
It's like buying a James Bond car that can drive underwater like a submarine, fun in the movies but not so good in real life.
But when there is ice out, but with big holes in it, or ice near the shoreline but open water farther out, what are you going to do?
I have thought of using a snowboard, even went out to try it today, but the wind was dying just as I finished setting up my kite.