Jeff Kester from upstate New York has an interesting project under way. Don’t forget, the iceboat building season is about to start!

I am about to pull the trigger on a buy for 420HC stainless for runners and I am wondering if there would be any interest in your area. 420HC is similar to 440C, but it is more resilient against chipping and more corrosion resistant. Our plan is to make either 7 or 15 sets of skeeter blades. The sets will have 42” side runners and a 30” steer runner. I plan to do alligator nose style, but I also have a European modified bull nose pattern as well. I’d be interested in supplying partial or complete. At a minimum, I think it would be best to supply after water jet cut and vacuum heat treat. I could also supply edged, or completed. My plan would be to deliver them at the next New England swap meet.

I am not 100% sure of the cost yet, but am thinking a set completed would be under $1000. The runners will have 1-1/2”x2”x1/4” aluminum stiffeners and a 1” UHMW mounting bar for DN style chocks. Basically, these are modeled after Jack Jacob’s J14 runners.

Additionally, I am in the process of building a mast mold. The mast is 7-1/4”x2-1/8” in an aerodynamic tear drop shape. They will be glass and carbon, we will be able to do up to 22’ blanks. In the first year we will just make a few and prove them out. After that, we will be interested in selling a few to recover the tooling cost.

Contact Jeff at: jjkester