Buggy Skates????

if you can fab, you can make anything it seems. coolbreeze and wolfee both made their own blades. XXtreme Products makes ice blades and are the best build for the $$$. i only say that since I know that Ruudje will take the time to make it perfect as a custom. http://xxtreme.nl/iceskates.html

MG also makes one and Libre as well in production and before PL use to make a snow conversion kit but its not available anymore. can i suggest you the ice sled???

@indo_wolf can we get some repost past links up for reference. hehehe. thank you.

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Originally posted by bigbenmi Then I made lengths of chain just shorter than the circumference of my tires and I made these chains into loops. Then I let some air out of my tires, centered the chain right down the middle and inflated the tires again. What I ended up with was a stock buggy wheel with a metal ridge running right down the middle. The chains seemed to be rock solid on the tires, but like i said i haven't tried it yet. But it couldn't have went together any better than i had pictured. I like this idea for several reasons. I tried studded tires but my elbows were too close and now I need a new jacket. Also it still retains all of its rolling characteristics and should work well on hard snow pack not just ice. I gues it depend on how well the chans stay on the tires once I really put a load on them.

Errrr...ummm.... I just went to the closet and found my Chicken Little suit (it was right behind the otter suit all along :wow: ).

This sounds sketchy....

• As the chain flexes, it's going to be constantly abrading the tires. Compared to snow chains which has a predominantly round profile, bicycle chains have a distinct "shoulder" to them.
  
  
• As the plates and spacers ice up, the are going to flex with some hiccups through the rotation cycle.
  
  
• Biggest concern is what happens if you side load the tires and peel the chain off. If the temperture drops or you take the tires from the interior or the car, there's going to be some pressure reduction which is all that's holding on the chains.
  
  
• If the chain peels to the outside, maybe not a big deal immediately except for scaring some hibernating gophers ("Mildred, WTF was that!"). But it is debris (possibly airborne) for anyone directly behind you to pick up on their tires/skates/skis.
  
  
• If it peels to the inside, your essently going to have a bicycle chain dragging behind you... but lassoed to the axle.
  
  
• On the front side, it doesn't matter which way it peels because of the fork, it's either going to jam or flail your ankle/leg (which may not be that bad with boots/snow gear on).

No more pepperoni before sleep.

ATB,
Sam

On the topic of a blade holder for hockey blades...
Attached are is a photo of a blade holder made for MBS ATB trucks used for a Freeskate board that I made for my wife a few years ago. The holder is Aluminum Window frame materialfound in a metal salvage yard. A friend tried to use sharpened hockey blades in a similar set up prior to making this set. There wasn't sufficient bite with the hollow ground blade to make good headway. He ground them to 45 degrees on either side on a disc sander and it worked great. Hockey skates only really bite the ice when they are on edge. My wife isn't so good on skates, so I made this for her to use with one of her small windsurfing sails attached to the board. It made her a better windsurfer - it was easy for her to learn to jibe on water that didn't move.

A similar type of holder could be made for a buggy, but I think a bigger beefier blade for a bug might work better.

another photo of the blade holder

Just got a set of 30" DN iceboat runners (blades) from an iceboat buddy.
We were discussing ways of mounting the runners on the buggy and we all came to the conclusion that it may not be worth the effort making brackets and spacers and the PL Buggy will not have a large enough stance and will be unstable at speed.

Soooo, I may build a "boat" using a 2x6 frame and 2x8 plank (axle) where I can just use standard DN ice boat hardware: runner/steering chocks (brackets) and bar extension foot steering. Something like this but without the sail rig and a single lower mesh seat and backrest.

http://www.cherrywoodmedia.com/Plans/IceBoat/iceboat-lake.ht...

Sent pics over to Jaymz the other day but didn't have time to put them on the forum.

I went the route of making a ski blade combination. As you can see in the pics the ski's are 'ski skins' from snowmobiles, the brackets are made from 1/4 inch steel, and the blades are 1/4 inch 304 stainless. The blades have a 60 degree bevel which works fantastic on the ice. Last winter was the first winter on them and I was very happy with the results. On ice the buggy rides the same as if you had Libre or Apexx blades but as you get into deeper snow you just keep going. I was very happy with being able to get blade performance with the added benefit of being able to blast through the snow as well. I've only been out in around 6 inches of snow at the deepest but was happy with their performance. With the blades sticking out from underneith the ski's you get very good lateral stability in the deeper snow as well.

One change for this year is to tap the blade so no bolt head will be protruding from beneath the ski so as to eliminate any drag due to the bolt heads.

Hope to see some of you guys out on the ice:wee:

Dean, also from the otherside of the pond, I am impressed, that looks sweet and make me thinking also , Last year we had also much snow on the Ice, so if you drove from a black ice spot onto some snowy spots, you flt them braking, so for deeper spots of snow , this could be a solution I think.

Thanks for sharing !!
best regards,
Jeroen aka Ozzy

Thank you for the compliments Ozzy. Glad you like them . I'm hoping to be able to make it to NABX 2011 to ride with you guys. I can't let Ricardo be the only lightweight speedster out there:wee:

As you can see in the first pic I went with a standard bearing arrangemt for the front blade. Solid piece of steel turned on a lathe to accept the 12mm bearings and spacer. For the rear,,,,if you have 20mm then I'd do the same thing as the front but flexifoil has 12mm rears which in my opinion wouldnt last 1 run on the ice so I opted to find the perfect size tube that would slide over the axle to give support therefore only requiring the 12mm bolt to hold it on but there isn't any load on the bolt itself. I'm very glad I went this route because you are able to hold huge amounts of power on ice blades as opposed to tires and weak links show themselves quickly. On tires you'll lose traction long before you see metal bend before your eyes. On blades that isn't the case. I was shocked to see my downtube twist more than 30 degrees on heavily powered runs:o. We all know they twist but your tires slide long before any kind of problem occurs. Not so with blades. There's no way 12mm bolts on the rear would hold up to lateral loads far in excess of what they see with tires. At least not with me driving they wouldn't.

I thought the ski skins were cheap also. They come in pairs and were inexpensive and easily available. All modern snowmobiles now come with composite ski's making these ski skins a great deal. They're more than 1/4 inch thick plastic and truely indestructable. . I looked into the carbides at the time but found them to not only be ridiculously expensive in my area but they were also designed around the needs of a snowmobile and not really a wind powered ice buggy. I don't think they'd be as efficient or provide as much grip as a true blade. I could be wrong though:dunno:. For what they cost I wasn't going to bother to try them to find out.

See you guys out on the ice:wee:

I was going to post them last winter but I got so busy around here there just wasn't any time. Glad you guys like them . Hopefully more people will give things like this a shot. We need more buggiers getting out there in the wintertime:wee: