DIY Ice Skates From Inline Skates

In the Netherlands we rarely have cold enough weather to properly go ice skating. But when we do, everybody goes out and skates on lakes, canals, ponds and anywhere a patch of ice can be found. The weather prediction for this week promised ice skating, which lead to a run on ice skates in the shops. So I found myself with a desire to ice skate, but without ice skates. I do have inline skates, so I figured: let's replace the wheels with an ice skate blade and we should be good to go ice skating!

1 pair of inline skates

2 strips of 400x40 mm steel (1 - 1.5 mm thick for tour skates, to 3 mm thick for ice hockey )

4 pieces of wood 400x25x12 mm

10 40mm m6 bolts

10 m6 nuts

20 m6 rings

Using an allen key, remove the wheels. Also remove the stop block at the back.

Cut two strips of 400x40mm, e.g. out of a sheet of 1 mm thick steel. Tour skates have 1 to 1.5 mm thick blades, ice hockey skates are typically around 3 mm.

Weld these strips together in the corners to affix them temporarily together. This allows you to give them an identical shape.

Trace out the shape, for example by copying another skate. Note that an ice skate is not flat, it has a curve. Ice hockey skates have a short curve, making them very agile, while tour ice skates have a longer curve. A 400mm long blade is in tour skate territory, so I went for a long curve. (Curve image used from https://bluemountaincougars.nl/schaatsen-slijpen/)

Use an angle grinder to rough cut the shape. Then use a grinding wheel to precisely cut the blades to shape.

The wheel width of my inline skates is 25mm, which conveniently is a 1 mm blade + 2 pieces of 12 mm plywood. The pieces of plywood will also provide rigidity to the blade.

Cut a few strips of plywood. I made mine around 380 x 25mm.

Round of the front bit of the plywood, to follow the curve in the blade.

Put one of the pieces of plywood in your inline skates and mark out the holes in the plywood.

Clamp the plywood together and drill the 6mm holes. This ensures the plywood lines up nicely.

Mark out the holes in the blades using one of the pieces of plywood and drill them.

The blades are probably still a bit rough from shaping them.

Clamp the blades together in a vice.

Use different whet stones to sharpen the blades. Tour skates have a square, smooth profile to glide across long stretches of ice. Ice hockey skates have a hollow profile, to generate more grip to accelerate and turn.

Use m6 bolts to mount the blade to the inline skate frame. I also drilled one additional hole in the front of the blade to add an extra m6 bolt to keep the front of the blade straight.

Find a stretch of ice and give your new ice skates a good test run. Enjoy!