Comments on: Heavy-duty, 360' ice-scraper

By: Steve

Steve — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 23:32:00 +0000

I just get a car with remote start.

By: CLamb

CLamb — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 18:46:00 +0000

Okay Cory has posted about a 360 foot ice scraper and a 360 foot camera. BB please get a font that has a degree symbol for him!

By: CH

CH — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 14:58:00 +0000

I was also wondering about the no-long-handle-thingy. Even if I could reach to the middle of the front window (I don’t) I don’t want to be touching the car sides with my clothes (I kind of like them dirt-free). And I don’t want to be scraping heavy layers of snow directly on my gloves, either.

By: timquinn

timquinn — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Here’s what I do about windshield ice: born in Southern California, will stay in Southern California. Works every time.

By: IronEdithKidd

IronEdithKidd — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 13:40:00 +0000

Judging by the written description, the author lives somewhere with weather very similar to what we get in the Detroit area. Months of frost with many variations in the frost characteristics. I would find something like this useful because of where I live and the predominant attitude in this neck of the woods that the garage is where you keep your toys, not your daily driver.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:44:00 +0000

I was wondering the same thing. By the looks of it, your hand fits into the middle, which seems to mean you’re going to end-up with ice and frost all over your hand and up your arm.

By: Joe Skaggs

Joe Skaggs — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 05:46:00 +0000

No handle, no care. Even if you are 6’5″ and drive a hatchback, like me, a scraper without a long handle and brush means you have to use your arm to push the snow off the top of the car, meaning (a) your arm gets wet, (b) your feet get wet, (c) your jeans get wet, or all of the above.

It might work ok in places with more frost than snowfall, but in the high country of Colorado, that piece of junk rates as a toy at best.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:37:00 +0000

Chakram?

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:01:00 +0000

Great way to kill off moths too.

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:59:00 +0000

I was thinking Xena frisbee.

By: Dlo Burns

Dlo Burns — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:58:00 +0000

I can’t do that because the water drains down into the engine compartment, and I f’ed up the window washer line last time I tried it. Thankfully winters in SLC rarely get that bad.

By: Halloween_Jack

Halloween_Jack — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 01:37:00 +0000

I’d say that the main concern would be that you’d have water on your driveway, which could freeze into ice. How did your dad deal with that, or was it gravel?

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:56:00 +0000

I guess it all depends on the temperature differential between the glass and the water. If one excites the molecules enough where the exterior of the glass expands juuust enough more than the interior, you’ll get a crack. So I don’t think I’d dare try it in subzero temperatures.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:51:00 +0000

IIRC, side windows and backlights are made of tempered glass. Windshields are laminated glass, with sticky stuff between layers of glass so that it holds together and doesn’t shatter into tiny bits when broken.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:38:00 +0000

Cold tap water works just fine without the concomitant fracturing.

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:35:00 +0000

I had a windshield scraper with a brass blade. THE best thing for scraping a thick layer of frozen rain off your windshield. That is, until the blade gets dinged.

What exactly are the term of that Lifetime Guarantee, eh?

By: Paul Renault

Paul Renault — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 00:32:00 +0000

I agree. Besides, it doesn’t have to be ‘boiling’ water… Tepid water is plenty hot.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:50:00 +0000

But my first concern is will I miss having a longer handle?

I sure would. I’m “only” 5’9″, and I have to extend mine to pop those sheets of ice off my roof.

People who don’t clear that roof ice, btw, are evil.

By: Jerril

Jerril — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:47:00 +0000

Answer is “yes and no”. Auto glass was glass, today it’s tempered glass. Tempered glass is pretty tough, and when it breaks it doesn’t create deadly spears, which is why they switched.

But tempered glass aspode into little bitty chunks if you nick it where “regular” glass would get a nick or small crack.

By: Boundegar

Boundegar — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:27:00 +0000

I appreciate your fear, but my windshield is crack-free. Boiling water might be a bad idea.

By: NickPheas

NickPheas — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:18:00 +0000

Credit card? Well, I wouldn’t. Supermarket loyalty card, expired bank cards, stupid club membership cards they feel the need to send me each year, Gredi card sized things that ones held a SIM card? Sure.

By: EH

EH — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 23:08:00 +0000

At any rate, you’d think that there would be newer kinds of windshields by now. What does the military use?

By: Sam Archer

Sam Archer — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:54:00 +0000

A 360 foot ice scraper? I could scrape my neighbor’s windshield! Or maybe just a 360 minute scraper for detailing the little corners of your windshield. =P

By: Oliver Crosby

Oliver Crosby — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:52:00 +0000

I’ve gotten away with using a hard plastic dish scraper for a few summers. This is in Ottawa.

By: welcomeabored

welcomeabored — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:51:00 +0000

Even those of us who have garages but live in snowy states have to leave our cars out in the cold sometimes. Excellent tips, xzzy! Thanks!

By: inkad

inkad — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:48:00 +0000

If that’s true, I wonder if manufacturers are using lower quality glass these days. Growing up in Michigan in the 1970′s, my dad would use hot water to de-ice his windows nearly every day in the winter, and never, not once, did he get a crack. Was auto glass more crack resistant back then?

By: Ian Wood

Ian Wood — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Soon to be painted silver and used as a weapon in the forthcoming Krull remake.

By: hymenopterid

hymenopterid — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:43:00 +0000

Thor asks, when the zombies come how long will your pitiful garage protect you?

By: Guysmiley

Guysmiley — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:33:00 +0000

Maybe if it’s a lead filled blanket… I grew up in the frozen wastelands of North Dakota, most days a blanket would be blown away before you could even fully spread it across a windshield.

By: Donald Petersen

Donald Petersen — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 22:32:00 +0000

When I was nine, my family moved from San Diego to Bigfork, Montana. It was the only time in my life I lived in a snowy environment. I’d sometimes watch my dad’s morning automotive-preparation rituals, including several of your tips. He had to plug in a block heater at night, too. We actually had a garage under the house, but the driveway to the street was steep and the car (a 4-cylinder front-wheel-drive 1974 Renault 12 wagon) couldn’t make it up the driveway if it was wet or icy, so my dad had to park in front of the house in inclement weather.

The following April we moved back to San Diego and never looked back. As a kid, I loved farting around in the snow every day. But as a grownup, I’d have hated it as much as my dad obviously did.