fill a baked bean tin with concrete or lead (melt it in the tin in a fire in the garden!)
before it sets put the end few links of a chain in (about 2-3ft)
when set tie on a length of rope 🙂

I made one by filling 18″ of old drain pipe full of concrete and screwed up a wire coat hanger and left a loop protruding from the concrete, I aint tried it yet but I cant be any worse than the pop bottle full of water idea i used last year their crap !

cut a 12″ length of 3×3 box section steel fill with lead drill 2 holes staight through an inch either side of centre get a 2″exhaust clamp thread on the length of chain+push clamp through holes either weld or double nut clamp threads attatch said length of rope when breaker is thrown in it will plunge thro ice+when being retrieved will remain parallel to the surface of the lake+wont “jump” out onto the ice+will remain under it until its back at your feet i have plonkered about with a few designs (sad i know)but this works best+does neatest job anywayyou wantneed one now till next year LOL~sick

I made one using a weight out of a sash cord window then attached a 1.5m length of chain to the loop on the weight with a “D” link then tied the rope to the other end of the chain

i have found that a steel/lead weight attatched to a 2 foot length of chain and then attatched to a length of rope to be fine for ice up to an inch thick. However, this set up doesnt really do any good when the ice is any thicker. I have been experimenting with a length of chainsaw chain attatched to a much heavier weight. The idea being the heavier weight to break a hole in the thicker ice and the chainsaw chain actually cutting the ice. Havent tried it yet but providing the chain falls with the cutting edge the correct way round i.e.against the ice, i cant see why this wouldnt work. I’ll be giving it a trial run on my local canal tomorrow to see if its any good.

magic you will need a 14lb er at tunnel on sat so make sure you eat your spinach lol

do you think it will be on sat then toro? didnt like the look of the weekends results.

what i find is best is a medium size sledge hammer head so you can throw it approx 13mtrs, then a chain connected to this about 2mtrs in length but the sectret is about every 4-6 inches up the chain push a 2 inch bolt through the link and tighten with two bolts and use this as a saw happy days and make sure you wear gloves~clap

can not see them cancelling another round can you ?
why dont he go around the fishery with a jcb and smash holes in the ice on the pegs hes going to use, job done saves a lot of sweating mate.
it looked like it fished bloody hard over the weekend someone said it was 4 inches thick
~think

one of my mates went on sunday and Les told him it would go ahead this saturday. I like the jcb idea and they have got one there, Mike could make a fortune on sat, how long do you think it would take to break out 84 pegs? £3 a pop jobs a goodun!

if he started on friday morning job done by late afternoon no frost forecast friday evening job done happy days~clap ~clap ~clap

Be interesting getting the digger over the bridge on house pool though aye mate!

@shep2 wrote:

cut a 12″ length of 3×3 box section steel fill with lead drill 2 holes staight through an inch either side of centre get a 2″exhaust clamp thread on the length of chain+push clamp through holes either weld or double nut clamp threads attatch said length of rope when breaker is thrown in it will plunge thro ice+when being retrieved will remain parallel to the surface of the lake+wont “jump” out onto the ice+will remain under it until its back at your feet i have plonkered about with a few designs (sad i know)but this works best+does neatest job anywayyou wantneed one now till next year LOL~sick

How do you manage to throw this?

Lead weighs about 6oz per cubic inch, your breaker will weigh about 40lbs if solidly filled with lead.

were hard as nails up north tha knows lol~clap

Big steel D shackle of a tank 3 foot of chain

@magic wrote:

one of my mates went on sunday and Les told him it would go ahead this saturday. I like the jcb idea and they have got one there, Mike could make a fortune on sat, how long do you think it would take to break out 84 pegs? £3 a pop jobs a goodun!

We tried this about 5-6 years ago on a prolific small carp lake in Kent. 20 pegs, normally need 60-100lb to win in winter. I believe that after the JCB bucket was used there was 13 blanks and the match was won with around 3lb………..

I used a lads on saturday that was made from a steel dumbell weight with chain through it and a length of rope. With it being round and having a decent sized hole in the middle you can throw it quite easily.

Go to a replacement window firm and have a look in their skip for a sash weight they have holes in them to fasten a length of chain or rope to.If that doesn’t smash it try using the skip.

chain saw blade is best for cutting the ice… like useing them old scale waights…

I have a 16m lenth of rope, with a lump hammer one end, (and a chain saw blade) and a 14lb sledge with a short handle on the other.
Depending how thick is tas to which one you use.

You can just throw the 14lb hammer about 11 meters.

i made 1 sunday morning with rope,2 foot of chane and bumbel weights and a padlock.by joining the chane together with a padlock you can easly change the weight buy adding more or taking some off.it worked a treet but the padlock broke off so i need a good quality 1 as the 1 i did use was crap but its all i could get b4 i went

hello all. thought i would try and show you a picture of the ice breakers i use. made them a few years ago. they are by far the best i’ve ever used.but i don’t know how to put picture on reply(am a bit thick that way)
they are similar to a crow bar with added weights. will put picture on if someone lets me know how.
ps is there only me who likes breaking and fishing through the ice……and on a canal to!

just worked out how to put picture on!

they look like something out of a horror film lol

well i would kill the person who borrowed it and didn’t think to keep hold of the end the rope…it’s been done before!

My icebreaker that I have used for years is :

14 metre of rope, 3 metre of thin(aids the cutting action)chain attached to a 5lb lump of lead off an old satch window, I also have bolts spread up the metal chain to also help.

I have used chain saw blades in the past but found they blunted too quickly so reverted to the above.

Depends on which type of chain saw blade you buy, i only know this because when i rang a supplier the fella at the other end was in his element explaining the pros and cons of the different blades available. The one he reccomended was called a ‘chipper’ he reckoned that this blade would cut through ice no problem, when it arrived it looks as though it wouldnt matter which way round the blade fell against the ice as there appears to be cutting blades on both edges.