Run a Rural Ice Delivery Service

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Once everything's in place, always cover the ice with a tarp and weigh the cover down (with boards or whatever). The sheet will keep the sun off your frozen merchandise and—more important—protect the ice from the melting force of the wind. At first, in fact, regardless of how carefully you cover the cakes, air coming through cracks and gaps in the truck body will cut into them. These spaces can—and should—be closed up, using any standard sealant or caulking material.

By this time you're probably wondering just how, exactly, an ordinary non-superhuman manages to get a 300-pound block of cold, slippery ice from ground level to truck bed . . . or vice versa?

Well, we now have the luxury of a hydraulic lift gate for our big stake-body rig, but when we started out, we simply manhandled our way through the problem. Our supplier—who, of course, had heavy-duty loading equipment—helped us to get the blocks onto our pickup . . . but taking them off was another matter. During the first year, we'd simply grab hold of a cake with our tongs, slide the ponderous bulk on its side to the tailgate, and—with our fingers crossed and muscles straining—ease the chunk over the edge and onto a plywood board.

Then, after a summer of sore backs and almost-squished toes, we finally got smart and built a ramp out of scrap lumber. The spinesaver took only about an hour to put together, and made the job of unloading not only easier, but faster and safer.

To build the slide, we first considered the width of our ice (approximately 12 ") and decided that our ramp would have to be 14" wide to accommodate any slightly oversized pieces. We placed two 2 X 6's flat on the ground, parallel to each other and 14 inches apart at the outside edges (which left a 3inch gap between the slats . . . all the better, since less wood in contact with the ice means less friction and easier sliding). The ends of the planks were beveled at a pitch of about 1/4 inch . . . with the bevels on the same side of each board.

Then we cut 2 X 4's into 14" lengths and used the pieces as crossmembers, nailing one of them at right angles to the parallel 2 X 6's every 15 inches or so, ladderlike. Finally, 1 X 3's were nailed horizontally along the outside of the 2 X 6 planks as side rails to prevent ice from slipping off the ramp.

Ordinary butt-type hinges—one for each 2 X 6—were then screwed into one end of the ramp at the bevels, with the attached side of each hinge countersunk into the wood and the other side hanging free. If you have an old-style pickup with a tailgate that'll flop down when you detach the chains that hold it, you can simply slip the loose panels of the hinges into the gap between the gate and the bed, and your ramp will be ready to use. And if you own a newer-style vehicle with a tailgate that won't drop fully, it's an easy matter to drill holes in the gate that align with those in the hinges, and insert bolts to secure the ramp in place.

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