cutting corners
10/25/2006 12:00 Filed in: ice sculpting techniques
Circular logo sculptures such as this Presidential seal piece can be tough to transport and set up.
*updated 12/15/11
It’s pretty obvious that the corners of sculptures can be pretty vulnerable to damage. Last night, for example, I wasn’t paying attention and I smacked the corner of a diamond-shaped logo into a wall. I lucked out and the carving suffered no damage. Of course, that’s not always the case.
Corners are particularly vulnerable when you’re welding two large pieces of ice together. An example of this would be when you’re combining two half-circles to create a circular logo sculpture that’s larger than 20 inches in diameter. During the welding process, the corners on the two half circles are easily damaged and not easily repaired. To protect against damaging them before the welding is complete, you can extend the corner a bit and leave some extra ice when you cut out the shape of the logo (see the illustration below.) Just make sure that you cut the logo shape outline into that extra ice so that you know exactly how much to remove later. After the weld is complete, you can cut off the extra ice that was left. This works for any shape where two slabs of ice are being combined to make a larger area slab. However, if you’re dealing with a large circular logo, you may want to leave that extra ice on until the sculpture is in place. Circular sculptures are notoriously difficult to handle because there’s nothing to grab on to except the base. Leaving that extra ice on there gives you a control point. Once the piece is in place, just cut the extra ice off with a hand saw and iron it smooth.
Protective handles on the edges of a circular ice sculpture can both improve the quality of your weld and make a sculpture easier to handle during transport and set up.
Because they’re so prone to damage, you should in general cut corners first. If you’re cutting off a piece of ice and you cut one end last, often that piece of ice will break off before the cut is complete and the corner will be damaged. If you cut the corners first and then concentrate on the middle of the cut, then you have much less chance of damage to your sculpture.
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