Another Portable Ice Shack Project - Pic Heavy

[Albertadiver]

Well, I must start off saying I've wanted to build a shack for about 10 years now, but never got around to it. I have a garage, and recently bought a big buddy heater to help heat it.

I've done a bunch of research, and a special thanks to The Fisherman Guy, his completed project is here.

http://www.outdoorsmenforum.ca/showthread.php?t=24279



The design for mine is roughly based on the following designs.

http://home.cogeco.ca/~charrons/Default.htm

http://www.stopsnoringnow.com/icesha...ntyphotos.html

I have a dodge Dakota, which means I have a small truck box. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there will be a portion of the shack hanging out the back of my truck over the tailgate. I’m going to set it up so that there’s a fair amount of storage under the shack for gear.

I’m going to make the shack pretty large, so that I can have 4 people relatively comfortably in there. And possibly use for winter camping overnight. The floor will fold down in two pieces with two clasps holding it together. Each floor piece is 6’6”, making the total length 13’. The width is 4’, for standard plywood.

Since I’m thinking on using it for camping as well, I’m making 4 hatches, for 4 holes.

By making the floor so long, I created a problem for myself in that when they fold up, they have to be below the curved portion of the roof or it will damage the canvass. So I’ll be making the roof 7’ high with a very shallow curve. Not the best, but I’ve already built one floor section. In hindsight I’d have made the floor panel only 6’.

The other issue is that it may be quite a sail in high wind, but I guess I’ll find out. I can always use guy wires with ice anchors if needed.

For the spreader roof pole, I was looking for expanding metal poles, since I didn’t want a 13’ pole hanging out the back of the truck. So I went with 2” abs, in three sections put together by couplers. I’ll build a slot for it on each wall, and should work well.

I bought a 15’x20’ brown canvas from princess auto. It looks great on The Fisherman Guy’s setup. I love wood burning stoves too, but since I have a big buddy heater, I’m going with propane heat. I have a CO detector as well.

Other than paint, I think I’ve purchased all of my supplies. The total budget was more than I thought, but this is a project that my wife let me do, so I wanted to do it well.




I spent a few hours this evening and have the first floor section down. My buck keeps me company, it’s cold so he’s got my toque.



Will post updates as I can. Hope to get the project done in about 10 days. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.



Here’s the big buddy going full bore in the background. Works great on the double car garage in -20 weather. Melts snow on the floor.