|
"Now ever since I was young, it's been my dream / That I might drive a Zamboni machine." So goes the Gear Daddies ditty often heard at hockey games as the Zamboni cleans up the ice. Snoopy's little pal, Woodstock, even drives a Zamboni over his frozen bird bath in the Peanuts comic strip. This huge, oddly named machine clearly has a special place in many people's hearts. But how does it work? We skated over to Yahoo!'s Zamboni category and quickly found the official home of the coolest machine on ice. Frank J. Zamboni & Co. is the original manufacturer
of the ice resurfacing machines we know and love. Frank J. Zamboni (1901-1988) is the inventor behind the machine that bears his name. Before the Zamboni, ice rinks were resurfaced by a tractor fitted with a scraper that shaved the surface. Then three or four workers scooped away the ice shavings, cleaned the surface, and added more ice to re-freeze. The process took over an hour, and Mr. Zamboni thought this could stand improvement. After several years of experimentation, he built the first Zamboni in 1949, but it wasn't until the famous ice skater Sonja Henie bought two for herself in 1950 that business took off. While a few other companies have built similar ice resurfacers since, the Zamboni remains the industry standard. The Zamboni site has a diagram
that shows how the machine works. First, a sharp blade shaves the surface of the ice, and a horizontal screw gathers the shavings. Then a vertical screw propels the shavings into a snow tank. Water is fed onto the ice from a wash-water tank, and a squeegee-like system flushes dirt out of any indentations in the ice. Next, the dirty water is vacuumed up, filtered, and returned to the tank. Finally, clean hot water is spread on the ice¿ and that leads to the second part of your question. Over at the Science of Hockey site, a hockey arena ice maker, Bruce Tharaldson, describes how the ice rink is maintained, and he addresses the hot-water issue: The heated water,
according to Tharaldson, is about 140 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit (60-63 centigrade); "the hotter the water," he says, "the more even a surface you'll get -- it melts that top layer when you cut across [the ice]." The Zamboni company has sold over 7,000 of its machines around the world, so look for one the next time you go ice skating or watch a hockey game!
|
