Ice Resurfacer

An ice resurfacer is a vehicle, or in smaller versions a hand-pushed device, that shaves and cleans the surface of an ice rink and lays down a thin layer of water that freezes into a smooth new skating surface, replacing the three or four workers who once had to scrape, wash and squeegee a rink by hand. The American engineer Frank Zamboni built the Iceland skating rink in Paramount, California, in 1939 and spent from 1942 to 1947 trying to mechanize that manual resurfacing process, first mounting a scraping blade and conveyor belt onto a surplus Willys jeep chassis in 1947, a design he abandoned because of problems with the blade and its handling. He completed a working version, the Model A Zamboni Ice Resurfacer, in 1949, built with four-wheel drive and steering on all four wheels before later production settled on front-wheel steering alone, and patented the machine in 1953; because Zamboni's own company became so dominant in the field, 'Zamboni' is now often used as a generic name for any ice resurfacer regardless of manufacturer.