How thick does the ice need to be?

[neil]

YA that's what I was trying to say when I was yakking before. I just couldn't remember the name of it. Saw drawings of what happens to the ice when pressure is applied from a moving load. If you stay at the proper speed the ice will stay solid as long as the thickness meets specs.
You can cross a crack on 9" of ice with a halfton truck in the middle of a lake. I can vouch for this one because the truck ahead of me did it and there was noway of stopping till I crossed it too in the same size truck. If you cross at 90 degrees the two sides of the crack just rub against each other a couple of times and then level out. We were about a hundred ft. apart and it was glare ice on our way home from a moose hunt. No big loads probably agood thing in hind sight.

[Tigerhaze]

This brochure was pretty interesting- it also mentioned crossing cracks at 90 degrees and some other tips such as not using paths other vehicles have used or parking too close together. Being in MO, we rarely have thick enough ice to walk on, much less drive on so it was intersting reading for me.

[neil]

It's not a good feeling when u see something like that and can't stop soon enuf. Makes your arse pucker up even if you stay dry.

[Lu47Dan]

When I was in the Army we had Arctic training at Camp Ripley , Minnesota . One of the training exercises was to build an Ice bridge (or road) across a lake , this was for the 12B's ,Combat Engineers, they cleared the snow off the ice and cut holes into it , then they would pump so much water an hour onto the surface of the ice covered lake and used the snow as dikes to hold the water on the road surface . It was a neat process to watch but in the end when they where ready to test the bridge the temperature had risen from -34 degrees F . to around - 10 degrees F. and we were not allowed to test it with a D-7E bulldozer as the safety factors had been exceeded for peace time training . All the 62E10's wanted to be the one to take the dozer across the lake , Including ME . That would have been very interesting to say the least . Dan

[Lucky]

As someone who grew up in I. Falls MN next to Rainy Lake I found this topic interesting.

When I was about 10 we were spear fishing on Rainy when all of the sudden the ice began to crack, pop and bang. We opened the door of the spear shack and saw a skidder, I don't know the size as I was a kid, pulling a small house across the bay we were in. Back in those days we would get about 4 feet of ice on the lake, not so much any more. Before the National Park service moved in some of my relatives logged in areas where the wood would be brought out across the ice roads of the lake. As I get older, 38 now, ice scares me more and more, thickness is too inconsistent.

[Trucker Dan]

As a trucker I think those ice road guys are nuts, and as far as taking my crawler over the ice I think 50 feet thick would be safe but anything less forget it. I personally would feel safer to float it across on some sort of a barge. There is just something about metal tracks on ice that does' nt agree with me. Rubber tracks I would feel a little safer, Maybe 49 feet.

[newfarmer]

I left my 40C JD dozer in the woods and now thr tracks are frozen with mud and ice. Any creative suggestions about how to thaw the tracks. I'm not near any hot water of electric. I could just wait until Spring, but want to plow some snow around the driveway. Thanks

[Ray III]

Now's a good time to buy one of those big ass torches that you hook up to a propane tank. I'd start the machine, heat the rearmost pads, move forward a few inches, heat the next ones, etc.