Postby Joe » Fri Jan 17, 2014 10:37 am
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.
I'm Joe from Backyard-Hockey.com and EliteRinks.com.
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