Thinking of bigger boards

[Chris]

Ive been looking at a lot of rinks with nice boards and then look out at mine with 18'' sides (before filling). I want to have amazing boards like those! Now to the million (or a couple) questions. How tall ought they be? How thick a piece of plywood should I use? How much support does it require behind them? should I put them on the ground with my horrible slope? or should I attach them inside after ice is formed? How do you cover the excess liner if you put them on before Ice is made? I can probably think of more, but if anyone could address any of these I'd greatly appreciate it!
Thanks!!

[Joe]

Hey Chris, welcome back!

Personally, I cheated...I got used boards from a rink. For next year, I scored four curved boards from the West Side in Manch (they built an off-ice shooting area and had extras) so I'll have a full shooting end.

My original plan was to build some. The user 'corbyville' on this site has a ton of great info, and even sent me detailed drawings of his boards. Now that I bought the curved pieces, I don't plan on building any.

Steve Pailler is a guy from MA who won last year's warrior contest...check the blog today. At the top of that story is a link to his rink's FB page, and he can probably give you some tips.

As for filling, I helped my cousin put in his liner this year after he purchased tall boards for this season. I'll tell you this: it's a lot harder than having small boards, but it looks nice at the end. What you need to do is either (a) buy a liner big enough to drape over the boards as you normally would, or (b) have a way to keep the liner in place while you fill and wait for it to freeze. My cousin did b, and it required us to either hoist ourselves up over the boards or walk on the liner, and we did a bit of both. You'll need some thin pieces of strapping, and essentially you're going to hold the liner somewhere halfway up the boards, then keep it in place by drilling the strapping into your boards. A friend of mine in MA goes out hourly, and adjusts the strapping (from the outside) if he notices his liner is pulling. My cousin did the same.

The best part of having tall boards is the kickplates. I'm not a fan of kickplates for smaller-board rinks, but for full boards, it looks amazing if, after the ice has frozen, you install kickplates over the liner and then cut the liner. There is literally no liner showing, yet it's held in place (above the water line) by the kickplates. Pretty cool if you ask me.

[Chris]

I will definitely look into all those articles. How do you find out about the extra boards at rinks, and are they big time budget busters? or do they just want to get rid of them. I certainly have access to truck and trailer to get them if I can find any. I just wouldnt know where to start!

[kevmac]

Hey Chris,

I have 4' high boards at both my ends, a couple in the middle (protect house from pucks) and the rest (including the curved corners) are 3' high. The benefit of the 3' high boards are they are just a bit lighter than the 4' high ones. My 4' high endboards are 3/4" plywood whereas the rest of the other boards are 1/2" plywood. It's a lot easier forming thinner plywood for the curved corners. I've also seen others with 2 sheets of 1/8" on the curved pieces.

My boards are 8' long and I brace each seam with a 2x4 stake pounded into the ground and then angle braced with another 2x4. On the low sides, I usually have another 2x4 straight attached from the bottom of the board seam to the stake (thus making a triangle brace) since the water typically pushes those boards out from the bottom. I have about an 8"-10" slope difference from North side to South side along the width so gravity is my biggest enemy during fill time.

My rink is 33-34' wide and 75' long and I usually get a tarp that is 40x100 which gives me plenty of playable room. Last year, I draped the tarp over the sides of the boards during fill and freeze. The tarp is held in place with standard staples from a staple gun. It will pull against the staples and the strong wind storms might rip it away from the staples, but I'm trimming it later anyway so I just restaple when required. After frozen, I trimmed the tarp about 2' high around and folded it behind my foot-high kickboards. I try to keep my tarp for a couple of seasons but knowing that I already have a new tarp in the garage for next year, this year I only but kickboards at both end and cut the tarp wherever it was exposed. Thanks to Mother Nature and a plethora of ice rain so far this year, my ice is actually higher than my tarp.

Although I have heard of it being done, I don't think I would put the boards on top of an ice base simply because I would have no way of supporting the boards plus I don't know what would happen during a warm spell.

I think I covered everything. :-)

My two cents,
Kevin

[Chris]

Thanks Kevin! That's a lot of good advice. I have a great set of braces built out right now, I was thinking this morning perhaps I may cut some sheets of plywood just in the spots where the braces are so the taller boards can slide behind my existing 18" sidewalls and put stakes and longer braces behind them. This way the slab will be made, then I can add the boards and still support them enough that if someone hits the boards, they (the boards) wont go down. Seems like a process, but where my low boards are so sturdy, and holding so much water. (about 12" at the deepest) I don't want to make too many changes and waste all that 1" plywood. I think this spring I am going to level out the yard a bit...Or wait until we hit a job where we take out a lot of fill so I can just truck it to my house instead of some other job site. :)
It would be so easy if I didn't have a nice maple tree with exposed roots right next to my rink. All I would have to do is scrape down and level out, but instead of course the tree is at the absolute highest point in my rink so I have to bring everything else up.
Does that seem reasonable?

[kevmac]

The great thing about maple trees is the amount of firewood you can get out of them. :)

[Chris]

haha true, but as a maple syrup producer I do tend to try to preserve those particular trees :)