Easily one of the worst parts of carving ice is moving raw ice and finished sculptures. Raw ice blocks are heavy and dangerous while finished sculptures are awkward and fragile. Unfortunately, it’s a rare situation in which people will come to see your sculpture where you carved it, so you usually have to move it at some point.

    One of many ways to move ice blocks and sculptures is to use a handtruck (or dolly). A handtruck is often one of the most readily available options and can usually help you move all but the heaviest or most awkward ice pieces. Even though you’re balancing the load over just two wheels, using a dolly is usually pretty safe partly because you’re keeping the load low to the ground. However, if something does go wrong while you’re moving a sculpture or block with a handtruck, it can easily mean the end of whatever you’re moving. Over the last nineteen years, I’ve lost a few blocks and even a couple of sculptures while moving them with a handtruck. Usually, it was because I was trying to move too fast or wasn’t paying enough attention.

    When you’re buying a new handtruck, don’t just get the first one you see; get one that meets your needs. Stay away from small wheels and weak frames, because you’ll just be back later to get the handtruck you should have gotten in the first place. Get something that is rated for the loads that you need and that has large, quality tires. I like one from Harper (pictured at top) that I got at Home Depot. Even though it has a plastic frame, it’s usually rigid enough to move heavy pieces and it’s also lightweight. The Harper dolly doesn’t have fenders over the wheels, but sometimes those are nice because they keep stuff (like plastic or blankets) from getting wrapped around the wheel axel. Convertible handtrucks are useful (ones that can convert into a flat “cart”), but I find that something often goes wrong with the convert mechanism and I have to strap it together somehow to keep it from converting into a cart at just the wrong moment. Some specialized (and expensive) handtrucks have oversized wheels that make it very easy to move loads over difficult surfaces. Even more exotic “handtrucks” can include integrated lifting capabilites.

    Since you’ve probably already got some sort of handtruck, there may be things you can do to make it work better. If it has a metal frame, you can tape pipe insulation over the metal tubes to keep the warm metal from making lines in unprotected ice. It also helps keep things from slipping off. If it has large rubber air-filled tires (which work great, until they go flat just before a delivery!) you can change out the hollow tires for solid rubber tires, which are only slightly less forgiving on bumpy surfaces. You can also put “Slime” in your tires (see below) which works pretty well to plug leaks as they happen. On my Harper dolly at the top, one tire is “slimed” and one tire is solid rubber.

To keep ice more secure on the handtruck, you can increase its load surface by bolting a piece of sturdy plywood to the frame. Use carriage bolts so that there’s not metal jutting out that can damage your ice. Finally, you can also use the tried and true method of strapping your ice to the dolly. Bungee cords work pretty well for this and you can store them on the handtruck’s frame when you don’t need them. Got something to add that I didn’t think of? Comment below.