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Dedicated to William Garfield Wright Sr. - March 22nd, 1927 - October 2nd, 1999

Notes on Ice Making

"...Ideal spraying equipment?
Garden nozzel to expensive
spray boom...whatever works
well for you and your budget."
   Making ice on your base takes patience and time. Many variables control this: compressor size, the area of your base (number of sheets), outside temperature, humidity, the type of base you have (sand or concrete). Use of filtered or de-ionized water is recommended. To save your de-ionizedwater, build your base ice with tap water.

Sand base

  1. As you turn on the compressor, soak your sand down to a depth of approximately 3 to 4 inches. Pull the temperature down to around 24 Degrees F. Make sure all pipes are level, straight, and connected properly to their chairs.
  2. After the sand is frozen, continue spraying to build up the ice level to a solid surface.
  3. First floods should be light so as not to break through the solid ice surface you've created so far.

Concrete Base

  1. Make sure that the concrete is clean and check for any cracks.
  2. Once temperature is down to about 24 Degrees F. lightly spray concrete to create a thin layer of ice.
  3. First floods should be light so as not to melt thin ice.

       Once the base ice layer is built, clean and level, make sure ice temperature is 22 or 23 Degrees F to ensure quick freezing of sprayed ice paint.

       Spray white paint on lightly. A few light sprays will give a better appearance than one heavy spray. The ideal spraying equipment? Garden nozzel to expensive spray boom... whatever works well for you and your budget.

       Cover white paint immediately with a fine mist building to spray. This helps protect your white. A thin layer of ice over your white will help you scribe through not only the ice, but the white paint makes the scribe marks bright and therefore it'll be easier to paint the houses.

       Painting the houses has been done with paint brushes, rollers, old clean horse hair brushes, and by spraying. To find the best way, experiment and observe.

       Cover the houses immediately with a very fine mist, this will help attain brighter houses and will protect your work. Eventually increase to a spray.

       Apply line ribbons by pulling them tight, wetting down, and rolling with a clean paint roller to insure the ribbon stays flat.

       Continue to mist and spray to insure covering your paint and ribbon. It's much better to spend time covering and insuring than to move everything and lose your hard work.

    Thanks for dropping by and I look forward to hearing from you!

    Doug Wright

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CANADA
R0M 2E0
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