Failed 1st Experience

[Danny]

So this winter I tried to fulfill my childhood dream of having a backyard rink. I got myself very excited to do this, built the rink, built dasher boards, ordered my liner, filled my rink, and then disaster struck.

My wife just called me at work to tell me that the board collapsed.

I used the OSB boards and wooden stakes with triangle brackets around the deep corner, but it turns out my 12" pitch put too much weight on the boards. Next year I will try again, and without pinching pennies. I advise against OSB w/ wood stakes for a larger pitch. I'll be rebuilding next year with 2x12s. In fact, I'm going to start stocking up on them now.

[kevmac]

It looks like you still have a lot of water in the liner and the liner isn't too damaged. In my opinion, it's not too late to save this. Get some more wood, repair the damaged area and brace the hell out of it.

I'd hate to see all that work go for naught.

[deke302]

That hurts to see, I agree that is saveable! I suggest these (rebar) Steel Stakes that I got at Lowes. They are only like $3 for 24" and $5 for 36". I bought these and put them flush with my 2 x 12's on my deep end I went with the 36" ones and drove them in 12 inches. Then bought little screw to tighten it to the 2 x 12 and it is SOLID. Then I also did some reinforement angle braces too. My rink is about 20" deep on one end and about 4 inches on the other end. Quite the slope for me. Best of luck and I sure hope you get it fixed!

Deke

[wilsondmw]

You can Save it! It is SO early in the season.....we were not even skating until after New Years last year.....plenty of time!

Cheers

[Danny]

My wife is actually pushing me to fix it. I don't know if she's gone mad, or what, but it seems like she's more invested into this thing than I am, and I thought that was impossible. I'm going to take a look at it when I get home and see how bad the liner is.

[Joe]

BUMMER! But as other have said, still salvageable. I was still building rinks between Christmas and New Year's last year...

Can I ask how tall your boards are? If you used my instructions in this post (http://www.backyard-hockey.com/2010/10/ ... under-250/), I want to make sure I'm up front with folks about the risks associated with simply upping the board height using the materials specified. Re-reading it, I don't really speak to the risks at all.

But rest assured you're in the right place and we'll help you through this.

[kevmac]

I think a good chant is in order here:
SAVE IT! SAVE IT! SAVE IT! SAVE IT!

[Danny]

Ok all, my wife and I had our annual "Friendsgiving" Dinner party, in which he have all of our friends over for a nice cordial dinn...ahh who am i kidding, we had 12 people crash at our house cause they were too drunk to drive home. A few of which were carpenters and DIYers who have decided to pitch in and help me restore the rink. This weekend we are supposed to get an uncharacteristic 67 degree day. I'm going to brace the OSB in the splintered area with a couple of 2x12 planks. The liner didn't rip nearly as bad as I thought it did.

For future reference, my water level was about 10-12 inches where the tragedy happened, so if you're ground is on as big a slope as mine is, you'll want to avoid using the cheap OSB wood.

[kevmac]

Woohoo! Get them all liquored up and convince your friends to help. I love it when a plan comes together.

I think the OSB could work, you just have to have many (many, MANY) more braces to avoid such tragedies. Nothing beats real wood though. Make sure you brace the heck out of it, especially where it broke because that weight will probably bow the 2x12.

[five8five]

Glad to see you're going to try to salvage it. As another data point, I actually have at least 14" on my deep side and I"m using 16" high OSB all around. It's all held in by 2' wood stakes, each 4' apart, but only 2' apart on the deepest side and in the corners. So far, so good. It's been full for about a week now but the weather hasn't cooperated enough for me to be able to surface and skate yet. Been doing a lot of shoveling though, and it's holding my weight ok, except for the slushy spots.