Postby Joe » Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:31 am
Welcome to the site David!
I think I've used nearly every combination of bracket and board material available at this point. My own personal rink uses 2x12's with home-made wooden triangular bracing. I've built rinks using Nicerink brackets and Nicerink boards, Nicerink brackets and plywood boards (either 3/4" or 23/32"). I've built rinks using Iron Sleek brackets and plywood, as well as Iron Sleek brackets with 2x12's. I've also cut 2x3's so that they had a point and pounded those in as bracing (it was a pain and many of them split). And my very first rink, the one I wrote about in our "build a rink for $250" post, was flimsy OSB with 24" tall wooden stakes. And you know what? Each combination has worked and allowed people to skate outdoors in the winter.
There are plusses and minuses to each combination, and at some point I want to do a blog post about all the different options. (Maybe I'll do it soon). For the all-wood rinks, the plus is that the parts are readily available at your hardware store, and the price tends to be cheaper than the rink-specific parts. Plywood is nice because you can buy one sheet and get 4 1' tall boards out of it, but then it tends to warp over the years and can get moldy during the summer. 2x12 is nice and sturdy, but can be heavy and hard to store. Nicerink stuff is great, but it's more expensive. See where I'm going?
I think if money were a factor (and it usually is), I'd go with 2x12's. You'll get many years out of them because they won't warp like plywood will, and once braced properly, they're nice and solid. For the bracing, if you wanted to go cheap, those 24" wooden stakes will allow you to pound them one foot into the ground, leaving 1' above the ground that you can screw into your boards. If you wanted to spend some money on rink-specific parts, Iron Sleeks were made to work with 2x lumber, and Nicerink brackets can be adapted to work with 2x lumber by shaving the front lip off with a sawzall.
I'm not sure this information helps...as there are dozens of combinations you can use. Find one that works within your slope, budget, and technical aptitude, and roll with it. Others may use different parts, but that doesn't necessarily mean that yours is inferior. Half the fun is building a rink unlike anyone else's. Good luck!
I'm Joe from Backyard-Hockey.com and EliteRinks.com.
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