It includes the original fuselage, the large fuselage, the iceboat version and the landsailer version. Our first mast step plate was 1/16 aluminum. Now that you have runners and chock sides finished, pivot holes drilled in runners and chocks, 3/8 chock bolt holes drilled in the chocks (using a drill press we hope) but not in the plank, you are finally ready to mount the chocks with proper parallel runner alignment. The hard stuff is done. The horn should be 5-1/2 ft. long, 2 by 3 in. These floating platforms were proposed to be used as torpedo proof aircraft carriers that would protect north Atlantic shipping lanes. I have a “How to Race your Sunfish” book from the 1980’s which does not address the apparent magic of the lateen sail. They are intended to tear out of the 2 X 4 sides if the plank hits something so the plank might not break or the side of the fuselage get torn off. I think we used 1,000 Lb test. The worst is a hand held belt sander or grinder with no jig. The carpet hinges are freebe unused scraps from flooring shops. Highly stressed joints of runner chocks are reinforced with 3/8 carriage bolts. On page 13 the running chock bolt hole is shown centered on the steering bolt. Steering runners are sometimes shorter even than our 18 incher. How do we do that alignment? No window is needed in the sail while sailing, but it is convenient to look through while standing up before starting to check to leeward for traffic, boats, baby carriages, etc. What we are looking for is a gently curving runner edge more or less centered on the pivot hole, as that is where most of the downward pressure of the iceboat is on the ice. Then the 3/8 holes are drilled through the plank, chocks removed, glue applied, and chocks clamped back on to dry. Usually with Sarns hardened steel plate runners or custom made inserts a good sharpening to invisible edge at the start of the season for the glass hard cold new ice lasts through the season, gradually dulling somewhat which is OK as the ice tends to soften as the winter progresses. Besides the bed frame stock turns out to have a reputation for being hard to saw, drill, tap, etc. Newer Sails, 2 sets of runners (Insert & Plate) for both boats, wood masts and booms. It is easy to sail. Leave the tools, don’t clean up, leave the heat up, turn the lights off slowly, and tip toe away. With epoxy we can also skip the wood screw business altogether and use a flat head machine screw or “stove bolt” epoxied all the way and bonding to the wood and filling whatever voids were left in fitting the arm to the chocks as well as strengthening the wood itself. Rubbing shoulders with an experienced ice boater at this juncture will be very helpful now and mandatory later. amzn_assoc_region = "US"; Check your lumber yard for a bent 2 X 12 plank. Things will have moved slightly in the glueing and bolting so try adjusting with light tapping or maybe tweaking the bolts’ tightness before the glue sets up. If you don’t glue the runner chocks to the plank they will move around and the runners will lose their parallel alignment, guaranteed. The rest of us will have to make a curved plank or leave the plank flat. Cheapskate’s ancestor boat has often been sailed with two adults or father and two children, something no racing DN skipper would dream of doing to his precious tuned plank. We can align the second runner with its own chocks, drill holes through the plank, apply glue, reclamp, check final alignment, tighten bolts, recheck alignment, adjust as necessary, retighten again, check again, and only then leave overnight. The mast needs a forestay and sidestays to stay up. We did have a hike report from a lady sunfish sailor of perhaps 120 Lbs. Excerpt from the book: This makes for much more pleasant sailing. Lloyd Roberts has been iceboating for some forty years. If you goof here you can reheat the braze joint and twist the arm until it is right, otherwise the boat won’t steer straight with the tiller straight, aggravating. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. He also spent $50 to buy plans. Hold on tight now. They all seem to love it, many of them want one, we are encouraged. We found the sheet pressures kind of high at iceboat speeds (more wind on the sail) so we added a sliding block into the sheet riding along the Sunfish-like traveler and then back up to the boom giving us 3:1 advantage instead of the Sunfish’s 2:1. (The forestay Carabiner is restrained by the top plate it goes through and the underlying wood frame so it does not flop around, it works just fine). I will for sure return to this page for ideas during my build. Take two pieces of wood 2 by 6 in., one 6 ft. and the other 8 ft. long. The sail is not very fussy about trim, a little luffing, or a lot in heavy air, is easy to carry and adjust for, and if you look back you will see the belly of the sail aft of the luff pulling you along. If the seat back is forward of the rear of the plank it is difficult to get into the boat. The steering shaft post is made of smooth 1/2 inch steel rod, ordinary cold rolled is OK. So we have a deck top mast plate and locating pin, all backed up by the 2X4 central keel under the deck. is 40-50 years old. This way, an individual can easily spot errors and initiate changes before […] This stuff still cuts nicely with power saws and can be drilled and tapped for bolts (bow plate ?). We immodestly suggest reading Think Ice by Lloyd Roberts available from Chickawaukee Iceboaters www.iceboat.me or International DN Ice Yacht Racing Association IDNIYRA. Drill through the chocks and plank, apply glue to chocks and plank, reassemble, clamp, fit bolts through plank and chocks and tighten the nuts. This is the most difficult part of building and maintaining your iceboat and it takes quite while to get it right, maybe hours. The top and bottom bow plates keep the bow from splitting from torsion loads. Time will tell, your feedback will be appreciated. Sandpaper glued to a sheet of plywood is OK for resharpening, but we have to remove quite a bit of steel from our perhaps quite hard bed rails to get the 90 degree edge, let alone a nice fair profile. To lengthen the cockpit the seat back AND plank can be moved aft which may improve high speed handling and reduce the briskness of the steering. More bend is tolerable until the rear drags on the ice (rough ride). Oil Cheapskate’s joints. How parallel do they have to be? This Scooter was built by Benjamin Hallock (of … + Update your shipping location 7 S 0 P O N S O A R P A 7 E E D-1-1 U J-1 0 F J-1-1. Then don’t go anywhere near it at all until the next day. So what is mattress frame angle? This hauls down on the gooseneck fitting bending the boom down and flattening the sail for supposedly improved performance. The sanding belt is set at 45 degrees to the bed of the sander, a standard runner sharpening arrangement. A reasonable profile for Cheapskate’s side runner is defined as 7 inches each side of the pivot bolt hole with the runner held down onto the flat surface by your hand over the pivot hole. Chickawaukee Iceboaters, Inc., Secretary Fir plywood will not finish well, is heavy, and will weather badly, cracking paint and varnish. Oh, we didn’t put the 90 degree “V” shaped edge on the runner yet. The easy fix is to bed the whole screw and steering arm in epoxy. S/V My Passion Sailing Cheapskate is a little different from DN’s and other ice boats in my experience. We have sailed them at dozen times now and they are still sharp enough, good steel indeed. 3/16 could be used for all the above for simplicity. The next best is a jig built to hold two runners at 90 degrees (see photo) and sharpen two edges at once with a hand belt sander, what we did for years. ( Log Out /  Now there is not much of the eye above the surface of the plank for the shackle to interact with. We can easily reach up and pull down on the sheet under the boom and bend the boom more if we want to. See the dotted line below the runner edge on the drawing “More Runner Stuff, Horses”. $$$ Ice Boat Plans Dn Ice Boat Plans Dn Do not just depend on the blueprints through the entire building process. Only one of them is working at a time anyway. They all come back smiling and some want to build one. It is absolutely vital that the steering gear does not come apart by a cable coming loose or steering arm breaking. Some experts think it really is flat. DN planks tend to break right at the fuselage edge, and in the case of all spruce planks this is due to compression failure of the wood fibers. Lloyd Roberts cut 1/8″ plywood to fit each side of mast step box. After that time we hade strong ice here to 21.3.2003 when all ice on this bay suddenly cracked all over. well worth it. Fasten the plank upside down. It seems to have neutral steering. It soon became dished like an ashtray. The setup works really great, both on the slalom track and when it comes to pure speed.During the season 2012/2013 we used the small slalom board most of the time which is good for speeds of +42 knots. Little horses to hold your ice boat off the ice overnight or over winter are easy to make and last for years. Skipper comfort is a high priority in Cheapskate, no lying down with the boom on your aching neck as in a race tuned DN or Sunfish. Order Plans for $25. Some building skill, with special attention to a few details, is required. I list various vendors for the parts (sail, rigging, wheels and ice runners etc. This is so that even if the wood gets wet, you can get the bolts out easily at the end of the day when you are tired, it has started to snow, and you are tempted to leave the runners on over night anyway. The seat back/plank relationship should be retained. I had one years ago.. loved it The screw eye for the sheet in middle of the stern may not be the best place for the sheet. Minnesota ice sailor, Pat Heppert, has put his virtual drafting pencil to paper and produced AutoCAD plans for his C Skeeter build, DRIFTER. March 2014. 2 Older DN ice boats in good condition. The profile should be checked with each sharpening, as most of the wear is beneath the pivot bolt where the iceboat weight is. should be screwed to the under side of the 8-ft. plank at the end with the grain running crosswise. The halyard needs to be “non stretch” Dacron or it will stretch inches while you sail, very annoying. https://iceboats.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/cheapskate-iceboat-small-4-12-14.pdf, To view the Cheapskate Manual as the author, Lloyd Roberts, intended please. Classic Ice Boat plans out of Sweden contained in 14 pages that detail the complete assem… The mast step is critical. Modern DN planks often have an ash top half and lower half of spruce or more complex hollow arrangements, sometimes all ash. Perseverance is needed. By T. S. ASGAARD. instead of the fancy piano hinge we used, which leaks. If you leave them on, grease them. This fits in the square hole, Fig. But, an angle in the hand is worth two in the store and the price was right. 1/8 hard aluminum has held up well. Originally, such craft were boats with a support structure, riding on the runners and steered with a rear blade, as with a conventional rudder. Removed from ice fishing package as I already have a Helix 7 in my boat to use on the ice. Changes in locations of specified components may very well make changes, and not good ones, in performance. Hi , thank you for the plans i built my own cheapskate iceboat last month with a good part of stuff i had in my garage ( and yes it took about 40 hours ). Some thought is needed if the builder wishes a longer or shorter cockpit. In the early phase of engineering “Cheapskate” Buchholz suggested we think about angle iron runners, long used with the angle at 45 degrees and sharpened, the flats of the runner steel screwed to the wood of the runner body. Stone Boat Sled . Winter 2014. However this profile does not have to be exactly as described to work reasonably well. Or setup in Ice fishing mode as a flasher/chirp sonar view (just need the transducer). The cables do not have to be humming tight, just not drooping loose. We have been lucky to come up with easy to build runners that work well. Bill Bunting, Maine and maritime historical author, is the head instigator of the Cheapskate project and provided the name. The profile of the runner is measured by placing the runner, sharp side down, on a flat surface, such as the steel table of a table saw or the surface of a good quality carpenter’s level. This has been the only real problem we have had in prototype testing. On the inside edge the sander sharpens both the runner edge and the outer edge of the angle steel that is bolted to the flat under surface of the runner body. At any rate they report hard spots, spontaneous brittle problems, dulling of tools, difficulty welding, etc. Get it right. It has 1/4″ bottom with 3/16″ bow and extra reinforcing on a hull with high 31″ sides in addition to all the above! We include these features and build each Ice Boat as a custom package. Anyone with even small experience in using tools can construct such a craft, and the pleasure many times repays the effort. This is not trivial. rol, A very well documented post from an articulate, thoughtful, and talented man. I’m currently building an ice boat with similar concept of easy and cheap to build ice boat. A plastic, brass, formica, or aluminum washer is used (perhaps cutting board material) to resist the upward lift of the steering column. The nut at the top of the steering shaft prevents vertical play of the shaft (which is why we have no vertical spring) so that this large flat bearing can help resist sideways torsional loads. What Buchholz had in mind however was using the angle iron with one leg straight down and the other flat against the bottom of the 2 X 4 runner, in keeping with our 2 X 4 simple construction. On the outside edge the sander sharpens as usual. That was my problem. Note that there is a central 2 X 4 keel enclosed within the maststep/steering post box. Make your runners as long as possible, and if a blacksmith will make an iron or steel runner for you, so much the better will be your boat. The best, easiest , and fastest way is with a dial indicator (cheapo Chinese about $20) on the end of a stick with a fixed soft aluminum spud at one end struck on the runner edge with a hammer to notch it so it will ride on the sharpened edge of the glued runner. Chickawaukee Iceboat Club Inc. Project Nothing here needs to be bent, laminated, or tortured. With the cheapskate a was well over 40 knots .Can’t wait to return on the ice . When the mast fell over (side stay coming loose), this long pin pried the hard plastic bottom bearing in the mast out of the mast, not good. amzn_assoc_ad_mode = "search"; Probably a laser dot will get too big at any meaningful distance (20-30 feet) to be accurate. It also serves as a towing hitch for dragging a damaged or becalmed boat home, as it will steer the boat as you pull, and tow easily. Do not box in the Cheapskate forward. 7 inches to where a double thickness of newspaper or .007 inch feeler gauge slides under the runner from the end and stops short of the pivot hole. Put the knots aft around the lunchbox. Fir is a bit harder than spruce and doesn’t fail in compression so easily. Since we changed to Caliber downhill trucks we haven’t had any instability or wobbling tendencies whatsoever. Change ), Some building skill, with special attention to a few details, is required. The triangular chock brace is the same stock, same length, square end please. This is the most important step in making the whole iceboat. $700 Great unit to add to your boat/atv/snowmobile for GPS. The 3/8 plywood forward deck, floor, and seatback we made from 3/8 yellow pine floor underlayment stock, not too heavy, (but maybe not waterproof, varnish/paint liberally). boards to make the platform. THE BOY MECHANIC VOLUME I 700 THINGS FOR BOYS TO DO WITH 800 ILLUSTRATIONS 1913, BY H. H. WINDSOR CHICAGO POPULAR MECHANICS CO. PUBLISHERS, Humane Mouse Trap – How to Make a Humane Mouse Trap, How to Make a Windmill of One or Two Horsepower for Practical Purposes, Homemade Wooden Toys - Four-blade Windmill, How to make a bobsled out of wood - DIY vintage bobsled, Jack in the Box - How to Make a Jack in the Box Toy, What is Air Made of? Then varnish the inside of the holes, clean out any wood fibers with the sharp drill and varnish again for a waterproof hole. This has worked well so far without visible wear to either Formica or spruce chock walls. It is happiest reaching with or without luffing. Ice Flyer Whizz Renegade III Cabin Flyer Ice Kart Ice Scooter Boys Flyer Isabella Front Steer Plus 7 new additions; Build your own Ice Boat, powered by the wind or engine.. at the top. Epoxy is slippery until it cures. If the running bolt hole was in front of the steering bolt, the boat would carry a weather helm. Run the seam on a machine, put a stout cord in the hem and make loops at the corners. The sail and spars of the Sunfish are used as issued with one exception. Standard DN steel plate runners are 26 inches. Details of Ice Boat Construction. Ft. vs. 60) makes for easy starts, no sprinting required. In the iceboat we are sitting in the cockpit rather than hiking out over waves. The spruce runner bodies are planed to less than 1 ½ inches to allow for the Formica contact cemented to the sides of the bodies to provide a hard bearing surface in the wood chocks. That takes care of go-fast mods we found worthwhile. Build your runners as drawn in “More Runner Stuff, Horses”. Planks were tuned/shaved to suit the weight of the skipper. The rear arm and shaft is pretty simple. The chocks must be glued onto the plank while clamped onto the runner itself, and the runners must have been properly sharpened so that the EDGES can be set up parallel to each other. Is there an industry standard grade you might order off the shelf? Nor have we indulged in the “Jens” rig of tying the gaff to the mast because the gaff is hauled all the way up the mast and does not flop around on starboard tack which is what the Jens is for. Moving the seat back aft but leaving the plank forward will take weight off the steering runner which already has just enough weight for reliable steering. The chocks themselves are 9 inch long pieces of the same 2 X 4 used in the fuselage. The following plan for building an ice-boat is from actual experience, and if used will enable any one of but little skill to build a very serviceable boat. Blue boat $1,800 Green boat $1200 The tiller steering column can be moved back, leaving the mast step where it is please. I see you spent a lot of time on this boat. Let the glue cure. amzn_assoc_search_bar_position = "bottom"; See Think Ice for a nice photo and description. These skates must be exactly parallel or there will be trouble the first time the craft is used. More of this in the sailing section. As good as you can get, plus or minus 0.001” (one thousandth of an inch!) This is a highly stressed structure, especially forward where visible flexing occurs while sailing (smoothing out the ride). Attached to the prop, the boat pushes itself along on the skis. Sometimes on a reach we pass other iceboats whose skippers are not paying attention. The steering arms used here are oversize 1 1/2 X 1/4 inch cold rolled steel. Now you can clamp one pair of chocks to the bottom (now top) of the upside down plank with the outer chock face flush with the plank end. We then go to 80 grit and 120 grit to finish, perhaps followed with 220 grit for polish and show. The Formica is liberally waxed with “bowling alley” carnuba wax or cheap Gulf block paraffin wax used for sealing jelly jars. Try a welding fabricator for this and steel stock. The other dimensions and locations of critical components all fall within allowable dimensions of the DN class specifications. Look for a sliver of light under the edge of the runner. Lots of sparks from the sander suggest a high carbon steel. amzn_assoc_linkid = "f4ac55d6f6a65cf9269063fdda2581bb"; The spar should be 9 ft. long and 2-1/2 in. The answer was “Go ahead if YOU want to, but the steel wasn’t really straight and had to be tweaked for each bolt.” I had a vision of pulling the carriage bolts out and the runner blade going all wiggly on me. amzn_assoc_ad_type = "smart"; We use a ratchet block for the sheet (often found on the front edge of the Sunfish cockpit) on the top of the steering post for the sheet. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Minor adjustments to the clamped chocks are made until the runner edges are parallel. I have a permanent smile on my face since then . Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. He fastened the steel angle to the 2 X 4 spruce runner bodies with 5/16 carriage bolts from top to bottom through the horizontal leg of the angle iron, four for each runner. Could this be easily modified for 2 people? If the bulkhead is moved back there may be interference between your feet, which are close together, and the tiller. amzn_assoc_default_category = "All"; The plans are a combination of drawings with dimensions taken off our prototype, photographs which we hope will reduce head scratching, and timeless prose which may cause head scratching. She was amused because when she felt a puff she thought she should hike herself out but the boat just accelerated instead of tipping. We hope their enthusiasm is shared by future builders of Cheapskates. Do it right once and forget about it. NEW Eyoyo Underwater Fishing Camera Video Fish Finder 7 Inch LCD Monitor HD 1000 TVL Waterproof Camera for Ice Lake Sea Boat Kayak Fishing 30m(98ft) Cable: Manual Ice auger: ICE FISHING ROD & REEL WITH ICE SCOOP: VINTAGE FENWICK WOODSTREAM ICE FISHING STOOL: NEW 3 Ice Fishing Light Weight Rods with 3 new reels: BIG FISHING TACKLE BOX WITH PLENTY OF FISHING TACKLE(EXTRA … Bill Buchholz is a professional boatbuilder, repairer, restorer, and avid ice sailor with a track record of building lovely iceboats from scratch or pieces of derelicts. The traveler arrangement seems to sail better. ). at the end. Like new Hummingbird Helix 7 GPS G2 head unit. This works well. Has anyone ever made a wheel kit for the summer? I went on the memphrémagog lake in Quebec to test sail it sunday two weeks ago i was moving slowly …not because of bad alignment of the runners but by lack of Wind . Carefully level both runner edges and plank. These too managed to undo themselves once in a while. This had to done for each set up to go sailing and turned out to be a cold fingered, time consuming aggravation, intolerable. DNs all have crowned planks. Cheapskate sails very well. We all weigh in the 140 lb range. The rehabilitation of a classic Long Island gunning boat – and a family heirloom. It is a single person ice boat that is more modern than some of the vintage designs offered to the home builder. Thank you for your excellent story. cut Sitka pieces to fit inside of mast step box – two in middle 11/16″ and one at each end to glue plywood too these should be 3/8″ and glued to bulkheads. He builds fast and well. We have at his shop, “iceboat central,” a Grizzly long bed sander for sharpening runners. 18 Different Designs. Download them here. If only the visibly dull (you can see the edge) area is sharpened you can easily create a “hollow” profile that will be slow. Dan Beard's Toboggan We have sailed Cheapskate hard on some very rough ice with no problems. The iceboat only works if the runners are precisely aligned so that the cutting edges are parallel. Figure 4 gives the shape and dimensions of the mainsail which can be made of muslin. A piece of hardwood 1 by 6 by 6 in. We start with a 40 grit belt for the shaping and profiling. The 1/2 X 5 inch lag bolt, is screwed into the central keel, maybe with some glue for waterproofing, until only the smooth shank is exposed, and then cut off with a hacksaw and the edges rounded pleasingly. 9. Because there is negligible to negative down thrust here, a cotter pin and 1/2inch diameter washer suffice on the deck. After the glue dries the triangular brace pieces may be fitted, screwed, and glued. Although a full-rigged, delicately balanced ice-yacht looks like a very complicated piece of mechanism, when it is carefully examined the framework will be found to consist of two pieces crossing each other at right angles. This article not only explains this seemingly strange concept but also tells how to build an ice boat? They may loosen over time just from rough sailing. Squint carefully at the drawing, see the lower edge or bottom of the runner steel. He is the co-author of Think Ice The DN Iceboating Book, now in its sixth printing. Choose your junk carefully. It won’t go anywhere. The Plans consist of over 60 pages of pictures, cut sheets, drawings and a liability release for the designer. You deserve rest and relaxation.