How to build your own ice rake
My plans for building a simple, cheap handheld ice resurfacer have move here:
How to build a backyard Zamboni
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My RinkRake broke for the third time last night – I have been thinking of building one for the last few weeks and love your instructions. I am also looking forward to having a longer handle – the short handle kills my back!
This is great. I just built my first ice rink and the top is a little bumpy so I was going to buy the rinkrake so I’m gonna build this instead.
I have a few questions: Do you have to use hot water or will cold water work as well? When you put this together, should the holes be on the top or bottom? How long should you let this re-freeze before using the ice again?
I use water straight out of my outside tap.
Put the holes on one side and then you can always flip it over to make the holes be on top or on bottom. Holes down seems to flood the ice more and I only do that when its real cold. Holes up makes the water run down around the rink rake and disperse in a thinner layer. Not sure if I’ve seen all that much difference. Really it just matters how fast you move with the rink rake.
If its cold and you put down a thin layer it will be ready to skate in 10-15 minutes.
I was really amazed with the results I could get with this. Really smooths out the ice. Don’t expect great results the first time…it takes a few sessions to get rid of those bumps and valleys, but once you get it smooth it is easy to maintain…until it rains
Snow isn’t bad, just shovel it off and use the rink rake to melt the leftovers and freeze smooth again.
Excellent. I just went and bought the parts and you were exactly right (even on the cost, right down to the penny). I looked in my basement and I actually have a free hot water hookup, so I might as well use it. Thanks for the tips.
Thanks for the info on building a rink rake! I went and made one right after I read your instructions. Can’t wait to surprise my husband tonight with this nifty gadget. We have our base down but now we have to do the finishing layer
Thanks a bunch
From
Grunthal, Manitoba
Thanks for the info, I was about to purchase the Rink Rake and when I found your website I what the hole size was and spacing of the holes was which is obviously the key to it working properly.
I am however curious as to how and why your original rink rake broke? I don’t want to make the same mistake.
I added a quick connect to the bottom of the rake so the handle and the bottom disconnect for ease of storage now I just have 2 pieces of pipe to store and not a big T shaped rake. I look forward to trying this over the holidays. Thanks again.
Question on snow removal. My base is probably 80% frozen. I’m a big guy weighing in at a slight 280 pounds. My kids can walk on it fine, but when I walk on it I can hear it cracking and can see the crack lines. We’re getting about 6-10 inches of snow tonight. Should I snow blow it (280lbs + snowblower weight)? Should I wait another couple days (it should be in the 20′s for the next 2 days)? I’m not sure what to do?
Wait for the ice to freeze solid. If you get on there, even if it doesn’t crack, the weight will force water up the sides and on top of the ice, mixing with the snow for a nice slushy mess. This could also cause ‘shell ice’ where the water has been displaced from underneath leaving air pockets. You can’t skate on the ice until its frozen solid anyway so the best bet is to wait a couple days and then get the snowblower up there and clear it off.
Jeff – The rink rake I bought was made of thinner PVC. Before my ice and frozen completely I was tossing it out onto the ice to get a head start on smoothing the surface. On one of my throws it broke. The one I built is more heavy duty and has a longer handle so hopefully I won’t have a repeat.
The disconnect is a great idea!
There are different thicknesses of pvc. Schedule 40 is a little heavier. Not much price difference.
Kevin – I had wondered about that, but this was my first time using PVC. I did buy the schedule 40 and it certainly was cheap enough. The rink rake I bought online was thinner material. I guess they really skimped.
Thanks for the info.
Another snow removal question. We had about 1 inch worth of snow the other day and I’ve left it on there. Well, we’ve had multiple 10 degree days and now the snow is frozen solid and not that easy to snow blow or shovel. Should I grind away at the snow or lay a nice layer of warm water over the snow?
Some of the contraptions out there use a towel to smooth the water. Has anyone tried adding a towel to the rake? Do you know what type of material these towels are? I may give it a try.
I haven’t tried that yet, but know a lot of people add a towel or carpet scrap. I think this helps give you a more even distribution while using less water. If it’s really cold out and you put some water on your ice it may freeze quickly and form more of a ridge instead of spreading out and freezing flat. Having a piece of material would smooth the water out evenly before it freezes. I haven’t tried that yet, but when I do I’ll post the results.
As for material..I wonder if the carpet works better because it has more weight. Look at a Zamboni. They have a rubber squeegee on the back to smooth the water. It probably helps force it into any cracks as well.
Thanks for posting these instructions online for me to see. Since this is my first real ice rink i am building, I never would have been able to dream up this contraption. I made min a bit bigger as i am building a huge rink out on a lake up here on Georgain Bay, Ontario. I made mind about 8 feet wide and the handle is about 6.5 long. I am going to give it a go tomorrow, so we will see how well it works out. I can always shorten it if i made it too wide. I think it wil be fine as i am hooking it up to a pump that i have submerged in the lake.
The handle end i had to modify a bit to adapt a 1 1/4 inch pipe to the 3/4 in pipe for the water source so i went and found and adapter for that. Hope it works out…..
I will let you know.
Hey Dan, please let us know how using lake water to flood your rink works out. I am thinking of using that same method.
Has any one used the mat on their flooding tool yet?
I am so glad to have found all of these comments, and I am going out to purchase my parts tomorrow.
I also made this rink rake when I saw the price of the rinkrake. I wish I had seen this website before I built it. The only thing that I added was a squeegee to help spread things around a little more evenly – kinda like a zamonie. I used one of those things that go on door to help stop the draft. Screwed it in and then used hot glue to fill in the gaps so water wouldn’t come between the pipe and squeegee.
Thanks for the website. Decided to build mine the day after xmas. I used 2X10′s because our yard has about a 6 inch drop. After about a week of weather in the 20′s, it finally froze. However yesterday, it went into the 30′s and I made a nasty crack straight across the middle. Hopefully it will heal.
The weather is calling for 50′s for 3 days ( unbelievable ) I imagine I will see some severe melting and then hopefully the crack will not be an issue.
We’re going to get some of that warm spell too. The rink will often withstand a short warm spell because the frozen ground underneath help keeps it cold. However, this forecast will probably do in a lot of rinks. Mine is on the north side of the house and remains in shade most of the day which helps a lot. The thing to watch for is if the ice starts to float on the melted water. If that happens, stay of the ice because it will definitely crack and could put a hole in your liner.
All you can do is wait it out. It’s January so you can count on it getting cold again. If it doesn’t…well, you can always buy some remote controlled boats
I seen the rink rake at home depot and it seemed cheap and looked like it would break easy, especially for around $50. I just ended up grabing a measuring tape while I was there and measured the hole spacing and size then bought the parts for about $15.
I ended up not using the PVC glue style pipes, but the threaded type. It is actually the threaded nipples for underground irrigation systems. They seemed much stronger than the PVC. This is my 5th season with my homemade rink rake and no breaks and still works like new.
John,
I went to HD and gathered all the parts to make a rake. I somehow, even after reading your comments and warnings, bought the wrong connector (male end rather than female end). My wife and I got a kick out my mistake. Other than that everything went together great. The only difference was that the guy at HD told me I didn’t need the PVC primer. I used sand paper to rough up the ends instead.
Today the temperature has been just below freezing. I have raked the rink twice today and it looks great. Thanks, Peter.
This rake seems to be better built in case you do not want to go through the excercise of building your own. A bit pricey….
https://www.myclickhost.net/~byoung2/backyardrinks_tools.html
I am going to make one that takes ideas from both sites.
I just made a rink rake style device today from these instructions. It took me just a couple of hours from reading the article to getting the materials and having them glued and drying. I had the 3/4″ PVC pieces cut for me to the 5′ and 2×2′ 6″ sizes – $9.49; 12 pack hose washers, $1.71; PVC Caps, tee joint, 3/4″ slip to male thread joint, 3/4″ dual female coupling valve – $8.17; tin of glue that will get me a couple more hundred of these items – $4.49. Total with regional taxes etc. $26.96. Cut $7.00 off each of the next 6 of these I have to build and it cost me just over $18.00 canadian. But as it is this one should last me a long time, let’s hope the glue lasts long enough for that
A fun project for sure with great success. It took less than a third of the usual time to resurface as with a sprayer nozzle and gave us a really even coat. We tried a quick 5 minute soak and with temps of -10 celcius, the surface was perfect in just about 15 minutes. We had a good skate and a bit of shinny hockey. Thanks for posting your plans!
Ian
John, thank you so much for the inspiration and instructions. I wanted to make something like this for a few years, but I was missing the secret formula of pipe sizing, drill size, and number of drill holes. A colleague told me about his RinkRake, and I found your site for a DIY version. He recommended making it larger than 6′ wide, and adding a shutoff valve.
Because Home Depot only carried 2′ and 10′ sections, common sense persuaded me to get two 10′ pipes and maximize the lengths. It came out to 9′ wide and I split up the handle into two 5′ sections. I adapted the handle to accept 1-1/4″ hose from a sump pump. I would have done 10′ wide, but I needed to cut a few short sections for threaded fitttings so it can be disassembled into 5′ sections for easier transport. Since I already had PVC primer and cement, total parts cost was under $15. The most expensive part was the $4 shutoff valve. I configured the tee with threads on the handle and one side only, so I only need to line up the holes once instead of twice (once for each side).
I used it on the 140′ x 40′ pond at work, and it worked pretty well with an old cast iron sump pump dunked into a hole cut in the ice. My 18″ chain saw was barely long enough to cut through the ice today. The 10′ handle flexes a lot when fully weighed down with water, but it works just fine.
http://wac.addr.com/rinkrake/index.html
If I make another one, I’ll use plastic cam-and-groove hose couplings from McMaster-Carr for the handle tee and hose connections – they will make it much easier to convert the rink rake into a spray hose. I already used these couplings for the hose connections, and they’re much easier to handle than messing with pipe fittings.
perfect instructions on the rink rake – I did not expect the water to shoot into the air with the holes flipped up, it’s been so cold in Minnesota it’s still hard to get an overall smooth surface but the RR definately applies a lot of water – way better than spraying with a nozzle. Do people spray full throttle or should I adjust down? I think my total was around $20.00 with glue, I had primer but my old glue had locked up, pvc glue projects don’t come along too often, the best part of the RR is walking over your ice like the guys who sweep the gym floor at half time of the basketball games with the crowd watching their every move
Thank you for the rink rake instructions. I built one today and used it for the first time. Very SMOOTH ice! I used 1″ pvc instead of 3/4. Not much difference in weight but very sturdy. I also used a 1″ pvc to 3/4″ NFP fitting. From there I was able to buy a WATTS Brass 3/4″ NFP female to 3/4″ female hose fitting. From there it is generic hose connections. All in $17.36.
is there any video of someone using the homemade rake?
this is cool !! ! !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSD-sl8Yx3Q
Check it out here Tim.
Great directions on the rink rake. Works like a charm. I went to St. Vincent DePaul thrift store and bought an old bath mat which I cut in half and attached to my rink rake with grommets and nylon zip cords–definitely recommend it as it smooths evenly and keeps rake more flush to the ice due to the waterweight. Only negatives with the way I did it –the carpets get wet and heavy, so caution is needed so as not to snap the pole. Kind of a pain to unhook when wet, so detachable carpet idea would be better. Any ideas? Also, on really cold day (was -37 wind chill on wednesday here in s.e wisconsin) you must move the rake quickly or the carpet freezes to the ice–snapped my lighter connector as a result. I added connector at base of t so that I can break my rake down into two pieces. Went with a bigger connector and that seems to have done it.
I have some issues with shell ice–any suggestions on how to eliminate it?
i was at the hardware today and saw a big squigge that you put on your door for like 4 dollars. if i bought 2 of those and put them behind it would that work better than a towel
Great idea! I have noticed that on those really cold nights I could use something like a squeegee to smooth the water because it freezes so fast.
I am in a rural part of Alaska and am surrounded by many natural lakes and ponds to ice skate that can be reached by snowmachine. Of course there is no running water because it is isolated, and all the self resurfacing products require a garden hose or water supply. Anyone have any ideas how i can get a smoother surface that doesn’t use a garden hose?
I’ve never tried smoothing the ice on a pond, but someone posted last year that they would cut a hole in the ice and use a sump pump to provide the water for the rink rake.
I have had my own homemade rink rake for at least 4 yrs. The only thing that I have done differently is add a piece of fabric behind it attached by zip straps. The material is thin, like an old t-shirt, and works pretty well. I also have a shut off valve similar to an out side faucet on the top of the handle. This is very handy for controlling how much water one applies. Quick and easy Zamboni.
John -
I’ve decided to join the ranks of home ice rink owners. I’ve been questioning whether or not I need a resurfacer (due to their cost) so I think I will try your idea. Please excuse the dumb questions, but I’m a first-timer – I have two: 1) With all my research I’ve gotten the impression that the rink needs to be filled and frozen in stages (inch or so intervals.) Is this the case or can you fill it all at once? 2) I’ve seen the term “flooding” a lot, but after a surface has already been established. Is that just another term for resurfacing?
Thanks for the help.
- Patrick – NH
Patrick,
It’s not a good idea to fill your rink up all the way at once time.
1) The ice expands as it freezes so it is hard to judge the correct height
2) The ice can freeze unevenly giving you a lopsided surface that takes several resurfacing passes to get right
3) You want to leave room to resurface during the winter and handle any ice or rain storms
Some people literally flood their rinks. When I was a kid my dad filled a garbage can with water, let it cool, then dumped it on the ice. I tried this without success, but I don’t know the exact technique.
With an ice resurfacer you flood in smaller amounts. If your ice is really bad you go slow and really let a lot of water flood over the top of the ice. When you’re ice is good, but needs some touchup you can move faster. You can literally get a surface as smooth as glass.
I usually start with 2-3 inches in my shallowest section, maybe 6 in the deepest and let that freeze. Then I build up from there until the ice is smooth.
My rink is built on a small lake(7km circ.). Cracks sometimes develop in the middle of the rink. Does anyone have any methods to fill these cracks?
Am I better off drilling a hole in the ice, give the rink a good flooding, and then maintain it with the rake?
I plan to try and maintain it with warm(not hot) water from the house through the rake.
Does anyone have experience building a rink on a lake? I am thinking about trying to build a rink by our cabin over the Christmas holiday. I was thinking I could snow blow/shovel an area and then, depending on how good the ice is, either use your ice rake idea to smooth the ice, or if it’s pretty bad, put down some thin layers of water with a bank of packed snow around the sides holding in the water. It’s usually pretty cold in the evenings (at least ~0 F or below) Thoughts?
Hey Jim,
I’ve done my rink on the lake in the past, but have never gotten around to doing it the way I would have liked because of weather conditions.
This year(once again), I am going to build up my sides with the snow blower, and also creating a ring on the outside of the rink in order to build the sides up higher. I then want to hose down the snow bank’s edges, and let them freeze.
Next step would be to give the rink a good flooding with a gas water pump with water from the lake.
The reason for this is that the ice surface sometimes does not have a chance to freeze nicely, and therefore is very rough. I figure a good flooding will melt the rough surface, and leave a decent surface too work with once it is frozen.
I then plan to maintain it with a rink rake.
I may be wrong about the flooding part, and I may obtain just as good results from going over it several times with the rink rake. But then again this is my first season using a rink rake.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Peter. I may start this in a week and a half and I will let you know what works. I am hoping the underlying ice is good enough to just require a little smoothing with the rink rake, but we shall see. Slush can sometimes be an issue, so I am hoping I get up there before we get too much snow, otherwise the underlying ice will be a mess.
Jim, your ice cannot be too much more of a mess than what I am going to have to deal with.
I just came in from clearing 18″ of snow on an area of 60′x100′ on the lake. The ice is very rough, and mixed with crusty snow, So scrapping it down is not an option. We brought it down as close as possible with snow blowers, but I think that dropping a good 1/4 to 1/2 of water on the area should be enough to melt the snow into the ice. They are announcing -17C tonight so it should freeze pretty good.
I figure even if it freezes a little lumpy, I will have taken care of the snow and rough ice. I hope to be able to even out the lumps with a few passes of my new home made rink rake that I am assembling this evening.
I’ll post my results as I go along.
Great tips John.
Couldn’t wait to get on with the kids. Also had to get on to remove 2.5 inches of slushy sloppy snow. With the slope in the yard I have 3.5″ of ice with one end floating still on top of a couple inches of water still…can see it sway up an down like an iceberg.
I have also managed to freeze about 3 layers of 1/2″ on the base. Still getting some cracking, but can’t tell how deep.
You mentioned earlier about getting on the ice to early, some cracking, etc…all this seems to be fixable with some real cold weather I would assume, correct?
Thanks and skate on…..
Our yard is sloped. One side is a foot and a half deep and the other side is 3 inches deep. I have packed down snow to level it out and I was going to use a heavy weight vapour barrier on top of it for our liner, even though it does not completely cover the entire area. I was going to overlap the barrier.
If I slowly build up the base by allowing each layer to freeze before adding another layer, do you think I will be able to build rink under these circumstances?
How thick should the ice be?
Well we had some good and cold weather yesterday and the entire family has on the ice last night without any swaying or further cracking. Looks like the entire base has completely froze.
With a couple of thin layers (1/4 to 1/2″) on top it’s like a sheet of glass. Using the rink rake nightly just for maintenance. The ice shovel works wonders for smoothing any bumps before skating and before icing the surface.
This has been a very helpful site to read through and get insight into building and maintaining the rink.
Thanks and skate on….
Well it’s been a week since I last posted any results.
Since then I’ve managed to flood my rink with a gas powered pump with a hole in the ice. Great results considering that the ice wa very rough, and had snow mixed in. I used the sugar cube method, get the snow saturated in the same way that you will see a sugar cube begin to melt when it is dark enough.
It was a nice cold (-15) after I flooded. The next day there were a few rough spots but overall great results condidering what I was working with.
In the past week we have had anywhere from 10mm of rain to 15cm of snow (North of Montreal), so its been a challenge so far.
Yesterday I cleared another 10cm of snow, and discovered an area of slushy ice on one side of the rink. Left it to freeze until tonight, and the overall rink is in pretty good condition.
Tomorow late afternoon will be my first attempt with my newly built rink rake using lake water. I will post my results on the weekend.
I modified my rink rake from the plans the you can find on this site. My rake has more of a rake shape, has a 72″ wide fan, can be taken apart into 2 pieces, and has a foam handle with cut-off valve. Cost was under $35. I would consider it more of a deluxe model, but the cost ran up because of the $8 joint that I used to be able to take it apart(not sure if it was a good investment yet). The cut-off valve($2.70) also is not a necessity.
Once I know how well my rake works, I’ll make the plans and photo available here.
Smooth skating…
what kind of wood do you perfer
I built my first rink less than two weeks ago. I had purchased the supplies and had them sitting in my garage, very much in our way. When I saw the forecast for lots of snow I decided I had to build it ASAP otherwise I’d never get it built and I’d have my lumber sitting in the garage all winter. I unfortunately did not do much research and I flooded the entire rink at once. It’s about 50 X 30 and I used 2X6 boards because I have a very level backyard. It did not freeze fast enough and when it snowed much of it was still water, and now it’s a total mess now. I cleared it as soon as I could, maybe too soon…there are some holes in there from my kids walking on it too soon…it could not be farther from being skateable. It’s bumpy, crusty, has holes, and some elavated areas from footprints.
I will build the rinkrank and try that, but I don’t think I’m at the zamboni stage yet. Any suggestions? I have a 6M liner and it’s holding steady. The forecast is for above normal temps the next 4-5 days, into the 30′s and 40′s (in Saratoga Springs, NY). Because of that I have not touched it lately…was thinking it might melt?
Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Mike
It’s been a couple of weeks since I last posted.
My rink ran into a bit of a snag. I floaded it with a trash pump using lake water, but the surrounding area of the rink had not frozen properly under the snow. On our next snow fall some water found it’s way to the edges of the rink, and when we tried clearing the snow, we discovered one side was nothing but slush. So overall I lost about 10′ on the width of the rink, bringing it down to about 50′x120′.
Over the past four days I have floaded the rink twice with the trash pump. It melted the snow that had crusted into the ice and evened things out a little.
Thursday Jan 1st, late afternoon was my first attempt with the rink rake. Not so good. I was using lake water with a jet pump and a self-coiling hose.
I think the hose is a little too narrow to be used with cold lake water. The result being that the hose froze up too quickly and never provided any water to the rake.
My next attempt was yesterday morning(Friday) using tap water(from a well), which worked much better, but not much pressure at the rake. Probably because I had about 150′ of hose out to the lake.
The result being that I had to either go really slow, or keep running over the same area as if I was raking (irony=rink rake). The end result was respectable considering the bumps I had on the ice before starting, and it started snowing when I was halfway through the job. The good news about the first dusting of snow is that it created a little slush in between the bumpy areas which when it froze only smoothed things out even more.
We went out late in the afternoon and cleared the 2cm of snow that fell and got in a decent skate after cleaning the snow. Skating on it actually helped knock down some rough high areas.
I went out to clean some snow today, but it was too windy and I did not want to lay down water to only have it mix with blown over snow,and just mess things up.
They are calling for -15C for tomorow morning. My plan is to fill a 20 gallon garbage can with warm water, and use the jet pump and self coilling hose to lay down a good layer before it snows tomorow night and Monday.
I think the self-coilling hose will be the better option than a regular hose when using warm water because the hose is always in motion, therefore not melting a groove in the ice like a regular hose would.
I’ll come back tomorow, and let you know how I am doing.
Smooth skating till then.
Peter
I just came in from a skate on my new rink. It was almost like skating on glass except for a fewbumps that still need to be worked down.
I managed to make two passes with my rink rake, and I was quite surprised how well it smoothed out.
This morning I purchased a length of weatherstripping which I tie wrapped to my rink rake. I find that it made a big difference in how evenly the water spread out.
It was an additional $23 to the overall cost of my rink rake.(Total of about $38 cdn)
Hopefully we don’t receive any of the ice pellets that they are forecasting, and maybe we’ll only get a dusting of snow. I’m looking forward to getting home early enough tomorow to lay down another layer of water on the rink.
My thanks to John for putting up his plans for the rink rake (though I modified it a bit), and for everyone who shares their ideas here.
There is a manual at this site
http://www.colchester.ca/download-document/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=16&Itemid=99999999&mosmsg=You+are+trying+to+access+from+a+non-authorized+domain.+%28www.google.ca%29
on how to maintain an outdoor rink, iot may be helpfull to some of you.
Smooth skating.
Thanks Peter. I was surprised by the difference the rink rake made the first winter. You can get amazing results with little effort once you get your base done. Of course, mother nature is always making things challenging with the snow and ice storms, but we need hobbies like this to get us outside in the winter and keep us out of trouble
John, great website. Found your article last night, picked up the materials from HD on the way home from work at 6:00 tonight, built the rake, let it dry and was watering by 10:00. Easily cut the amount of work to 25% of what I was doing before.
I have a question. I have a horrible patch along one side, its on a bit of a slope as I miscalculated when I laid out the 2×6′s. Next year I will slide everhing over a foot or so. For now, I’m having a hard time with this area. Been only able to build it up with slush. Not very skateable. Any techniques on how I can get this area skateable or should I just put a bench there…