What's A Zamboni

[skatergee01]

what does it do?
what's it for?
yes, i have seen the disney ice princess movie before but it didnt exactly answer my questions.

[Sessy]

With use, the ice gets all scratched up. Sometimes there's even deep holes and ditches in the ice. The zamboni is made to smoothen the ice.

It's a big tractor-like machine. It scrapes a layer of ice off the ice, melts some of it (stores the rest in the big front) and filters the snowwater, adds a little bit of fresh water to the molten icewater, pours it back onto the ice and drags over it with a mop-like cloth thingy to smoothen it out. Then when it freezes again, you have smooth ice.
Not all ice resurfacing machines re-use the snow. The ice scrapings which aren't put back onto the ice are usually dumped in the back of an ice rink to melt somewhere, and look like a big heap of snow. Some rinks have a big hole in the floor that opens for this purpose.

If the scraping is set to take off too much ice at a time, the machine can get stuck (this once happened at our rink before our group class). Therefore it is sometimes necessary to zamboni the ice twice, or thrice, after a very busy public or hockey session.

Also, they can be somehow configured to lay ice where there was none before as well, they kind of just spray water in that case, I'm not sure how that works exactly. Probably with a lot of refillings of the water tank, I'm guessing.

http://www.zamboni.com/


The funniest thing I've seen was one ice rink where the grassmower looked identical to the zamboni, only difference was it being about a fifth in size of the zamboni...

[Clarice]

Our rink doesn't have Zambonis - we have Olympias. They're basically the same thing, made by another company. They are powered by electricity, not gasoline, so we don't have problems with Zamboni fumes. There's a long electric cord, like for an electric lawn mower, that comes down from a track on the ceiling. We still call them Zams, though. I think that's become almost a generic term for an ice resurfacing machine.

[Morgail]

We still call them Zams, though. I think that's become almost a generic term for an ice resurfacing machine.

I love how it's a verb too, ie. "Have they Zammed the ice yet?"

[Clarice]

It's also my dog's name. I have a 6 lb. Maltese mix named Zamboni.

Remember that story a while back about the guys who took a Zamboni for a joy ride through a fast food drive up window? Wouldn't work with our Olympias - the cord's not long enough!

[Isk8NYC]

LOL

www.zamboni.com (http://www.zamboni.com) has a lot of information.

[Skittl1321]

LOL

www.zamboni.com (http://www.zamboni.com) has a lot of information.

hee- I was just over there looking if they had anything about protecting their trademark (making sure that olympias are not called zamboni's etc... if it becomes a common name, they can loose their brand name!)

Sure enough: http://www.zamboni.com/trademark.html
(off topic, but when I saw the post about calling olympias zams I thought of this: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/10/do-you-google.html Example: "I googled him on Yahoo and he seems pretty interesting."
Our lawyers say: Bad. Very, very bad. You can only "Google" on the Google search engine. If you absolutely must use one of our competitors, please feel free to "search" on Yahoo or any other search engine. Of course people will keep doing this and lawyers will keep fighting it)

[Sessy]

Uhm... can it be that the neighbouring rink to the one in my town has two olympias WITHOUT cords?

[Skittl1321]

Uhm... can it be that the neighbouring rink to the one in my town has two olympias WITHOUT cords?

I think olympia makes gas and electric. The gas wouldn't need a cord. They also have battery powered electric ones, they also wouldn't need a cord.

[deannathegeek]

I love how it's a verb too, ie. "Have they Zammed the ice yet?"

My daughter will tell people 'You can't go out there until they're done Zamming.' It's so cute! She also has a Zamboni Xing sign on her bedroom door :D

[Derek]

The Olympia at our rink (Coventry UK) is gas powered, that is gas as in Calor, not gasoline.

[Mrs Redboots]

Ours is calor-gas powered, too, and even though it's an Olympia, everybody calls it a Zamboni!

[CanAmSk8ter]

It's also my dog's name. I have a 6 lb. Maltese mix named Zamboni.

Remember that story a while back about the guys who took a Zamboni for a joy ride through a fast food drive up window? Wouldn't work with our Olympias - the cord's not long enough!

I love the name Zamboni for a dog, especially a tiny one! I thought about lots of skating-related names for both of my dogs, but I don't think Zamboni ever occured to me.

[Clare]

Ours is calor-gas powered, too, and even though it's an Olympia, everybody calls it a Zamboni!

Shows how (un)observant I am, I always thought ours was a Zamboni!

[SkatingOnClouds]

what's a Zamboni?

something I wish our rink had.:roll: instead of tractor with a scraper bucket on the back, and a hose to flood the rink.

[Rusty Blades]

something I wish our rink had.:roll: instead of tractor with a scraper bucket on the back, and a hose to flood the rink.

LOL! You may be one of the lucky ones - it is harder to do a crappy job with a hose than a resurfacer! Around here they are often in too much a hurry and manage to leave the ice rough despite the fancy machine.

[smelltheice]

Our rink in the UK used to have a zamboni type machine that fitted on the linkage behind a small tractor. There is a company in Finland now that has a third option to Zamboni or Olympia. They are called Ukko and make electric resurfacers

[sue123]

I think olympia makes gas and electric. The gas wouldn't need a cord. They also have battery powered electric ones, they also wouldn't need a cord.

So how does it work if there's a cord? Doesn't the machine roll over the cord as it's cutting the ice? I don't see how this could work. Or am I not thinking of it correctly? I assume when you mean they have a cord, that the olympia gets plugged in to the wall and goes out onto the ice and cleans it in the same pattern the zamboni does. So wouldn't it get tangled up in the cord?

[Clarice]

So how does it work if there's a cord? Doesn't the machine roll over the cord as it's cutting the ice? I don't see how this could work. Or am I not thinking of it correctly? I assume when you mean they have a cord, that the olympia gets plugged in to the wall and goes out onto the ice and cleans it in the same pattern the zamboni does. So wouldn't it get tangled up in the cord?

I already explained this - the cord comes down from the ceiling. There's this track that extends from the bay where they keep the Olympia out over the center of the ice. When they bring the machine out, the cord kind of unreels and there's enough slack to allow the machine to make its circuits around the ice. When it goes back into the bay, the cord gets reeled in again.

[slusher]

Olympia (http://www.resurfice.com/)

[sue123]

I already explained this - the cord comes down from the ceiling. There's this track that extends from the bay where they keep the Olympia out over the center of the ice. When they bring the machine out, the cord kind of unreels and there's enough slack to allow the machine to make its circuits around the ice. When it goes back into the bay, the cord gets reeled in again.

Sorry, thats what I get for not reading carefully and just skimming. Now for some reason, I have this image in my mind of the cord not giving enough slack and the Olympia guns it to get moving and instead, ends up flying in the air. I have no idea why but I can't stop picturing it :D

[Skittl1321]

Sorry, thats what I get for not reading carefully and just skimming. Now for some reason, I have this image in my mind of the cord not giving enough slack and the Olympia guns it to get moving and instead, ends up flying in the air. I have no idea why but I can't stop picturing it :D

LOL. If the cord reeling thingy malfunctioned I think rather than the Olympia going flying it would be more likely that the cord would snap. However, my experience with those types of things is that they are more likely to malfunction taking back IN the slack (meaning the cord won't roll back up) than giving slack (so the cord will always roll out).

[sue123]

LOL. If the cord reeling thingy malfunctioned I think rather than the Olympia going flying it would be more likely that the cord would snap. However, my experience with those types of things is that they are more likely to malfunction taking back IN the slack (meaning the cord won't roll back up) than giving slack (so the cord will always roll out).

Well of course that would be more likely, but definitly not as funny. Although how much fun would it be to ride the cord like a Tarzan thing? just hang onto the cord as it goes around the rink, putting on aerials for the skaters watching. And then, when it's done with the resurfacing, you can slide down the cord oh so gracefully and wind up on the ice.

[Bunny Hop]

something I wish our rink had. instead of tractor with a scraper bucket on the back, and a hose to flood the rink.
Yesterday 09:39 PM
LOL! You may be one of the lucky ones - it is harder to do a crappy job with a hose than a resurfacer! Around here they are often in too much a hurry and manage to leave the ice rough despite the fancy machine.
I was just thinking similar. I have been to SkatingOnClouds' rink and it actually wasn't too bad in terms of resurfacing. It certainly wasn't much worse than when they do Formula1 Zamboni at our rink (i.e. most of the time)!

[2loop2loop]

When I managed an outdoor Christmas rink a few years ago (before I got a real job), we had a little half size Zamboni thing called a WM. It ran on diesel and the damn thing would always wait until the rink was really busy and the ice all chewed up to not start. It was good fun late at night though taking it out and doing doughnuts on the freshly cleaned ice!

[Morgail]

Sorry, thats what I get for not reading carefully and just skimming. Now for some reason, I have this image in my mind of the cord not giving enough slack and the Olympia guns it to get moving and instead, ends up flying in the air. I have no idea why but I can't stop picturing it :D


:lol: That just made me laugh out loud!

[ibreakhearts66]

Sorry, thats what I get for not reading carefully and just skimming. Now for some reason, I have this image in my mind of the cord not giving enough slack and the Olympia guns it to get moving and instead, ends up flying in the air. I have no idea why but I can't stop picturing it :D

Haha. Add this to the image. All of the ice shavings fall as it gets pulled into the air, so snow falls everywhere, like a snowstorm. Maybe THATS how we can bring snow to los angeles. Flying zambonis!

[Sessy]

Rotflmao!!!


Well a few weeks ago, some guys down the street here ordered a full body for their car, and they were doing more than your normal full body kit, they were replacing even the doors, trying to make it look like some crazy expensive movie car. It was like... The whole outside of a car, packed in Styrofoam/polystyrene. A GIANT chunk of styrofoam, that is. They just broke it into pieces and dumped it on the sidewalk in a heap. I'm not sure if they planned to clean it up when they were done attaching the whole thing or not, but... Wind picked most of it up, wiped it across the street. Cars and trucks drove over it, crushing it to tiny little balls, which covered the entire street... Too bad they were a week or two late for it to be a "white christmas", but man that stuff was all over the place.

[GordonSk8erBoi]

Our rink has a gasoline-powered Olympia. I notice the rink prerecorded announcement is careful to say "resurfacing" and doesn't use the Z-word, although bystanders often do (I do myself).