Olympia Preparation
Hi All,
When the Olympia machine shipped, it was not quite ready-to-roll. The shaving blade was bad. It was dull and had a couple of huge nicks in it that showed up as scars on the ice. We used it for flooding water for the ice-in after the circus. That was especially nice to run the two machines simultaneously flooding.
As the thickness built, the system was not able to quickly freeze the 400 gallons of water dropped by two machines, but I was still able to flip back-and-forth between them which was nice. After that kind of flooding, frozen ripples are left all over the ice where different passes froze. Since you are not shaving while leaving water, the ripples can get pretty bad. Mostly, the next coat runs off the high spots, so it is not too bad.
But, before anyone skates on it, a leveling process is undertaken with the resurfacer/s shaving the ice. We run cross-cuts, spot patterns targeting high spots, and figure-8 patterns. This gets it back to one fairly even sheet without the ripples. Then a normal pattern cut makes the ice skate-able. I used the Olympia for some of the leveling, despite the gouge from the blade.
It let me start to get familiar with the Olympia and how it behaves. I used it for early leveling cuts and then switched to the Zamboni to finish the job and take out the gouges. Well, that was the plan but things got a little interesting and the changeover was not so smooth. But, this seems like to good time for a cliffhanger.
Stay tuned for more on my merry adventure and how I averted a near-disaster on our brand new sheet of ice.
Cheers,
Guido
When the Olympia machine shipped, it was not quite ready-to-roll. The shaving blade was bad. It was dull and had a couple of huge nicks in it that showed up as scars on the ice. We used it for flooding water for the ice-in after the circus. That was especially nice to run the two machines simultaneously flooding.
As the thickness built, the system was not able to quickly freeze the 400 gallons of water dropped by two machines, but I was still able to flip back-and-forth between them which was nice. After that kind of flooding, frozen ripples are left all over the ice where different passes froze. Since you are not shaving while leaving water, the ripples can get pretty bad. Mostly, the next coat runs off the high spots, so it is not too bad.
But, before anyone skates on it, a leveling process is undertaken with the resurfacer/s shaving the ice. We run cross-cuts, spot patterns targeting high spots, and figure-8 patterns. This gets it back to one fairly even sheet without the ripples. Then a normal pattern cut makes the ice skate-able. I used the Olympia for some of the leveling, despite the gouge from the blade.
It let me start to get familiar with the Olympia and how it behaves. I used it for early leveling cuts and then switched to the Zamboni to finish the job and take out the gouges. Well, that was the plan but things got a little interesting and the changeover was not so smooth. But, this seems like to good time for a cliffhanger.
Stay tuned for more on my merry adventure and how I averted a near-disaster on our brand new sheet of ice.
Cheers,
Guido
posted by Guido at 6:48 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home