11-21-2010, 04:31 AM
Several years ago, I made a simular adapter for my electric drill as the Ice Kicker 1. I cut the end of of my hand auger handle and welded it to a 1/2" bolt shaft.
I spun it with a DeWalt 18 volt drill and it did OK, not great, but OK. It was able to drill through 12" of ice about 6 or 8 times per battery and I had 3 batteries so it worked fine for me. It did tend to catch at the end of drilling the hole or would cut sraight through and not have enough torque to break the ice out fully. I would have to do this with a spud, which was fine for me.
My first attempt at making the thing, the bolt would spin in the chuck of the drill, to stop this I ground the bolt into a triangle so that it sat firmly in the jaws of the chuck and would not slip.
The other problem with these kind of adapters is that you tend to hold the auger bit near the top and close to the drill chuck. It is possible and I had it happen a few times for the whole thing to come out of the chuck and if the auger has punched through the ice it will continue to spin and dissapear into the hole never to be seen again. That is what the bar that is sold with the ice kicker is for, to stop the auger from going down the hole. I sarted out with a bat type of auger stop but didn't like the bar spinning around hitting me. I instead fashioned a stopper out of a round piece of plywood. It worked much better and the second generation was made from the top of a 5 gal paint bucket, which was lighter and worked better.
The following year I saw a drill adapter for a meat grinder at Cabela's bargain cave that had a 6:1 gear ratio on it. I bought it and adapted it to run off of my drill and power the auger simular to the Ice Kicker II. It works fantastic and at my drills high speed can drill about 12 to 15 holes per battery in a foot of rock hard ice.
In closing I would not recommend the Ice Kicker 1 unless you have a 24 volt frill. I would say that the Ice Kicker 2 with it's 2:1 gear reduction would work well in most conditions for the better part of the day, based on what I have built myself.
I should note that I swing an 8" strikemaster auger with my set up. Do the math for pi x R2 on a 7" and you will see that you are cutting a less ice than an 8" and it may work better.
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I spun it with a DeWalt 18 volt drill and it did OK, not great, but OK. It was able to drill through 12" of ice about 6 or 8 times per battery and I had 3 batteries so it worked fine for me. It did tend to catch at the end of drilling the hole or would cut sraight through and not have enough torque to break the ice out fully. I would have to do this with a spud, which was fine for me.
My first attempt at making the thing, the bolt would spin in the chuck of the drill, to stop this I ground the bolt into a triangle so that it sat firmly in the jaws of the chuck and would not slip.
The other problem with these kind of adapters is that you tend to hold the auger bit near the top and close to the drill chuck. It is possible and I had it happen a few times for the whole thing to come out of the chuck and if the auger has punched through the ice it will continue to spin and dissapear into the hole never to be seen again. That is what the bar that is sold with the ice kicker is for, to stop the auger from going down the hole. I sarted out with a bat type of auger stop but didn't like the bar spinning around hitting me. I instead fashioned a stopper out of a round piece of plywood. It worked much better and the second generation was made from the top of a 5 gal paint bucket, which was lighter and worked better.
The following year I saw a drill adapter for a meat grinder at Cabela's bargain cave that had a 6:1 gear ratio on it. I bought it and adapted it to run off of my drill and power the auger simular to the Ice Kicker II. It works fantastic and at my drills high speed can drill about 12 to 15 holes per battery in a foot of rock hard ice.
In closing I would not recommend the Ice Kicker 1 unless you have a 24 volt frill. I would say that the Ice Kicker 2 with it's 2:1 gear reduction would work well in most conditions for the better part of the day, based on what I have built myself.
I should note that I swing an 8" strikemaster auger with my set up. Do the math for pi x R2 on a 7" and you will see that you are cutting a less ice than an 8" and it may work better.
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