any zamboni drivers here?

[Rich Nixon]

just looking for some cool buds to talk about clean cuts and stuff with. just dropped a dime:

Click to read more...

 

[ilyazhito]

Rich, why is cleaning corners so difficult? Is it because you have to use a machine with a square face to run over arcs?

I've thought about making a hybrid between a Zamboni and a Roomba to clean corners of rinks, but I don't know what it would take to make such a concept feasible. My guess is that the Roomboni would have to have water tanks attach to the top, so it could squeegee the corners, yet have enough traction to not slip around on ice.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Rich, why is cleaning corners so difficult? Is it because you have to use a machine with a square face to run over arcs?

I've thought about making a hybrid between a Zamboni and a Roomba to clean corners of rinks, but I don't know what it would take to make such a concept feasible. My guess is that the Roomboni would have to have water tanks attach to the top, so it could squeegee the corners, yet have enough traction to not slip around on ice.

Yeah the corners suck precisely because of the square machine/round corner thing. You can do them pretty cleanly if you have time/experience/a good working machine. I'm only 5 months in (but like, 4-5 days or 50-70 cuts a week) and I can get the water tight to the corners when the conditions are right. But in a 9 minute bang-out cut before a men's league game or something it's kind of a get-what-you-get scenario, just tryna focus on efficiency and smoothing out the huge gashes left around the circles from repeated drills in a HS practice.

It isn't fun bouncing off the boards either...but it's kind of designed to just slide gently along them. It's a really heavy machine, but ice is ice.

I assume many community rinks are the same with that: lotta use, drivers with varying experience/comfort, machines in various states of repair/capability.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

just looking for some cool buds to talk about clean cuts and stuff with. just dropped a dime:

View attachment 500255

I’ve never counted, how many trips around the rink does it take? It used to drive my weird brain crazy seeing the Zamboni have to go back for that last little sliver they always seemed to leave. Now I figure that’s just how it is, don’t wanna risk missing spots elsewhere, but if you line it up perfectly can you eliminate that last pass? Or is it the same every time?

 

[tarheelhockey]

I’ve never counted, how many trips around the rink does it take? It used to drive my weird brain crazy seeing the Zamboni have to go back for that last little sliver they always seemed to leave. Now I figure that’s just how it is, don’t wanna risk missing spots elsewhere, but if you line it up perfectly can you eliminate that last pass? Or is it the same every time?

This chart makes it look like you can get it perfectly aligned and not need to make the extra pass, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it.

 

[Rich Nixon]

I’ve never counted, how many trips around the rink does it take? It used to drive my weird brain crazy seeing the Zamboni have to go back for that last little sliver they always seemed to leave. Now I figure that’s just how it is, don’t wanna risk missing spots elsewhere, but if you line it up perfectly can you eliminate that last pass? Or is it the same every time?

So a rink is 85 feet wide. A Zamboni blade is about 6.5 feet wide. That's about 13 total passes. Typically folks do either 1, 2 or 3 trips around the circumference, meaning they knock out 2-6 trips up and down before their first middle pass. But it's an odd number, so it depends on where you start your pattern to the Zamboni entrance as to whether you'll need to go up one more time before you get off, if that makes sense.

Also, humans aren't perfect. On the outer rings it is easy to line up with no overlap--you just look down to the left and you can line the tires up to the wet ice. But when you start making middle passes, you have to line up to the far side--you're looking to the right across a 10 foot long, 6-7 foot wide machine that you can't actually see over. So you have to figure out where your cut line is relative to your sight line, which is not easy. A lot of rinks will put tape on the spot on the machine's nose that you have to line up, but since everyone is a different height and sits in the saddle differently, it's not exact. Tricky stuff to be honest. So that's how you end up with overlap/random gaps--it can be hard to line up once you are done circling the outside.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Drove the zamboner when I was 18 for a couple of years in college. Dumb rink always used to book things so tight that everything was always running late and everyone would give me the dirty looks while I was cutting the ice.

 

[cowboy82nd]

Hey Rich, where is that rink located in the picture?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Never drove a Z, but drove an Olympia for five years. I miss it!

 

[Rich Nixon]

Never drove a Z, but drove an Olympia for five years. I miss it!

Funny...all our zambos are breaking down (old/cold/overworked during HS season) and we just got an Olympia delivered today. So I get to figure that out tomorrow morning I guess.

 

[Rich Nixon]

Hey Rich, where is that rink located in the picture?

There are a ton of context clues there...

 

[Uncle]

Hey Rich, where is that rink located in the picture?

Looks like the jersey shore arena in New Jersey from my bored night shift sleuthing. Was going to find OP name and social security but figured it would come across as more psychotic than funny

 

[Marotte Marauder]

I've often wondered why the Zamboni doesn't have an expansion feature on it like a gang mower. One nice slow pass around the perimeter and then open the expansion attachment, a couple more passes and done.

 

[Rich Nixon]

I've often wondered why the Zamboni doesn't have an expansion feature on it like a gang mower. One nice slow pass around the perimeter and then open the expansion attachment, a couple more passes and done.

Some Olympias have a wider conditioner which makes for less passes. But you can't just expand it...it's literally a giant razor blade plus a giant horizontal auger plus a big perforated water pipe, it's a series of mechanisms that have to work together uninterrupted. Much more complicated than a gang mower, and the conditioner weighs hundreds of pounds (if not a ton on its own) so it's not something that could simply fold up somewhere, both for its sheer mass and all the moving parts inside.

Overall, one of the hardest things I have found to master has been lining up the center cuts to ensure you have absolutely no overlap without leaving any gaps. I rarely get it perfect in the brief 10-minute slots we have to cut, but end-of-night when you can go slow it's not that bad. For a practice, I'll go and touch up any gap wider than about 6" or longer than about 10'. For games, I'm going back and picking up anything I see, even if it pushes start back by a minute or two.

 

[Oil Gauge]

So a rink is 85 feet wide. A Zamboni blade is about 6.5 feet wide. That's about 13 total passes. Typically folks do either 2 or 3 trips around the circumference, meaning they knock out 4 or 6 trips up and down before their first middle pass. But it's an odd number, so it depends on where you start your pattern to the Zamboni entrance as to whether you'll need to go up one more time before you get off, if that makes sense.

Also, humans aren't perfect. On the outer rings it is easy to line up with no overlap--you just look down to the left and you can line the tires up to the wet ice. But when you start making middle passes, you have to line up to the far side--you're looking to the right across a 10 foot long, 6-7 foot wide machine that you can't actually see over. So you have to figure out where your cut line is relative to your sight line, which is not easy. A lot of rinks will put tape on the spot on the machine's nose that you have to line up, but since everyone is a different height and sits in the saddle differently, it's not exact. Tricky stuff to be honest. So that's how you end up with overlap/random gaps--it is hard to line up once you are done circling the outside.

Hey Rich, Fellow Zamboni operator here. Been at it for just over 10 years.


here's my take on the laps question.
A zam blade is 77" wide. the rink is 85' or 1020". This means it takes 13.25 passes to cover the rink completely if you line up the passes perfectly with no overlap. Doing a cut with no overlap is not recommended as the blade is tapered up 1/16" on each side, this taper is spread over the outside 4-5" of the blade. To get a nice level cut you really want to overlap by about 4" or more. That effectively cuts our cutting width down to 73" per pass which means we can do a flood in 13.97 passes, call it 14, or 7 laps. That doesn't leave very much margin for error though. I would much rather take the extra lap every flood and not miss anything instead of trying to be too perfect and end up missing a spot and have to do the extra lap or maybe 2 anyways. This is why that last lap is usually a pretty small strip.

 

[Oil Gauge]

This chart makes it look like you can get it perfectly aligned and not need to make the extra pass, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone do it.

This diagram only shows 4 laps, it takes at least 7.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Soothing

 

[Oil Gauge]

I've often wondered why the Zamboni doesn't have an expansion feature on it like a gang mower. One nice slow pass around the perimeter and then open the expansion attachment, a couple more passes and done.

it would likely struggle to achieve the down pressure necessary for the blade to consistently cut the ice. Also when you turn if the conditioner was wide like a gang mower the water application on the inside of the mower would be much heavier than the outside which would be moving much quicker which is a problem.

 

[Oil Gauge]

What's everyone's thoughts on the NHL's best ice? I believe its MSG's first time on the list. I wonder if a lighter concert schedule allowed them to maintain better ice?

 

[Rich Nixon]

What's everyone's thoughts on the NHL's best ice? I believe its MSG's first time on the list. I wonder if a lighter concert schedule allowed them to maintain better ice?
View attachment 538302

It's interesting to me, because I'd always assumed climate and crew experience had the most to do with Minnesota, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Montreal's ice reputation (Edmonton in particular). You know, GOOD ICE GUYS in GOOD HAWKEY PLACES.

Vegas seems surprising at first but I could see various reasons for it. Given that it's a newer facility (like Rogers) and that franchise seems to spare no expense on anything, they've got new machines running like new in friendly conditions for them, and they likely hired a good staff.

Interesting weather there. No real humidity, is waaaaaaaay easier on the icemaking machines and the ice itself. Also depite high daily peak temperatures, it doesn't sustain those peaks for more than an hour or two each day before a rapid descent. From October to April, average overnight lows are all below 45F, including a couple months in the 20s...despite average highs being 60s-80s in that time. Seems way easier to keep good ice in Vegas than in, say, Florida, where you just get muggy awfulness all year round.

Seeing MSG on that list is interesting because you usually hear complaints about their surface, precisely because of how crazy busy that building is between its insane concert schedule and the Knicks. I think your lighter schedule theory might be solid here.

Or maybe it's that NEW YAWK TAP WAWTAH BEST IN DA WORLD BABY that they always talk about.

 

[Oil Gauge]

It's interesting to me, because I'd always assumed climate and crew experience had the most to do with Minnesota, Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Montreal's ice reputation (Edmonton in particular). You know, GOOD ICE GUYS in GOOD HAWKEY PLACES.

Vegas seems surprising at first but I could see various reasons for it. Given that it's a newer facility (like Rogers) and that franchise seems to spare no expense on anything, they've got new machines running like new in friendly conditions for them, and they likely hired a good staff.

Interesting weather there. No real humidity, is waaaaaaaay easier on the icemaking machines and the ice itself. Also depite high daily peak temperatures, it doesn't sustain those peaks for more than an hour or two each day before a rapid descent. From October to April, average overnight lows are all below 45F, including a couple months in the 20s...despite average highs being 60s-80s in that time. Seems way easier to keep good ice in Vegas than in, say, Florida, where you just get muggy awfulness all year round.

Seeing MSG on that list is interesting because you usually hear complaints about their surface, precisely because of how crazy busy that building is between its insane concert schedule and the Knicks. I think your lighter schedule theory might be solid here.

Or maybe it's that NEW YAWK TAP WAWTAH BEST IN DA WORLD BABY that they always talk about.

Haha NEW YAWK TAP WAWTAH!!! I hope they don't use tap water, but maybe its so pure they don't have to filter it!?!?!?! I think they also did some renovations there recently. Not sure exactly what was done, but if they upgraded some HVAC equipment that could help them with building conditions as well. Coupled with a lighter schedule over the last couple years and they could have built up some good will with their ice. Adding in the novelty of playing at MSG can't hurt either.

Vegas has been on this list for the last few years they did the poll. Their humidity or lack there of is probably the biggest factor outside of their building design. Plus I think they can probably keep their building a little cooler as people in Vegas are usually looking to get out of the heat. Their climate is likely too dry though, their dewpoint right now if 7f. The NHL recommended temp/humidity is something like 60-66f / 40-44% which gives you a dew point of 35.6-43.5f. I'm' curious if they have a humidification system in their arena to bring up the humidity in the arena.

What makes you say Edmonton in particular for good climate and crew experience? Humidity in all 4 of those places are all fairly similar. Do they just have that good of a crew?

 

[Oil Gauge]

Anyone putting their ice in this month? Or already got it in?

 

[Golden_Jet]

How often do drivers cut down the edge buildup, once or twice a week?

 

[The Crypto Guy]

How often do drivers cut down the edge buildup, once or twice a week?

They wanted me to do it every night after the last group got off the ice.

 

[cynicalcitizen]

Hey Rich, where is that rink located in the picture?

It covers the entire picture.