Need Ideas for a Homemade Ice Chisel

[HunterDave]

I've been on a bit of a tear this week with asking questions about equipment in prep for the upcoming trapping season so here's my question for the day......

I need an ice chisel and I figure that I should be able to make something effective on my own rather than going out and buying something fancy. I already have a 6' pry bar that I could use but it's bloody heavy to carry around. Does anyone have any suggestions about what material I could use to make a good homemade one?

Pictures of whatever you've made/use would be great!

[dmcbride]

Originally Posted by HunterDave

I've been on a bit of a tear this week with asking questions about equipment in prep for the upcoming trapping season so here's my question for the day......

I need an ice chisel and I figure that I should be able to make something effective on my own rather than going out and buying something fancy. I already have a 6' pry bar that I could use but it's bloody heavy to carry around. Does anyone have any suggestions about what material I could use to make a good homemade one?

Pictures of whatever you've made/use would be great!

I made a ice chisel for ice fishing and it seems to work well. I actually used a 1" chisel designed for wood. I cut off the handle and welded it to some 1"X1" square tubing that was 1/8 thick so it isn't very heavy. I am sure it could be attached to a wooden shaft to make it even lighter. You can get chisels in different sizes to suit your needs and they are already hard steel so you won't have to sharpen it very often.

[outofbounds]

I build my chisels/needle bars from old leaf springs. I cut them them on a bandsaw. Weld on a handle from 1 " pipe stock. No pics as all my equipment is left in skin shed out on the line.

[Red Bullets]

I used a planer blade and had the blade milled to a 22 degree pitch on the cutting edge. The angle of the blade to the bar is 55 degrees. Then had it welded onto a 15 lb. bar. The strap is a must so you don't drop it down the hole. Cuts like butter. I can go through 2 feet of ice quicker than you can crank a hand auger. I sharpen it once a year.

The bar is heavy but the weight does part of the work for you. There is a technique for using this blade so PM me if you make one.

[nube]

After taking an ice chisel that I bought at halfords last year and trying it the end of winter I pulled out the gas auger and vowed if that did not work I could wait till open water season for beaver or ice that was less than a foot thick lol A ton of work

[Redfrog]

When I was a kid. Ice was a new thing. We used a 'spud' to chisel holes for ice fishing. Some times the ice was a couple feet thick. I see some ice chisels at Princess for about 20 bux. You do need a looped handle on the top so it doesn't get dropped into the hole. A lanyard would also be a good idea. If you make it too light, it means you have to pound harder.

[bill9044]

My old man took a 1" pipe and welded flat bar to one end then welded a sharpened to a point cone to the other. I used that and a chainsaw. Chain saw worked good to initially start a hole to set. But I used the chisle to check or remove any traps after.

[calgarychef]

I seem to remember the old timers when I was young had chisels that had a "v" notch in the end. I don't know if that works better but it's what they had.

[KegRiver]

Back in the 1970s a friend loaned my big brother an ice bar. It was simply a round bar with the end honed to a three sided chisel point.

It worked so much better then anything we had from the local stores that big brother decided to build his own.

He had no round stock to work with so he substituted the closest thing available, and abandoned steel fence post, the T shaped kind.

Making the three sided point was easy. All he had to do was grind each side of the Tee to a 60 degree angle and sharpen each side.

Then he cut a old baseball bat to fit, for a handle. The result far exceeded everyone expectation. It worked better then the bar it was supposed to emulate and far far better then any store bought bar we knew of.

These many years later we still use the same system for our ice bars, only now we cut the handles on a wood lathe, from birch we cut on the farm.