I carved this robot ice sculpture well before I'd heard of an ice sculpture robot.



*updated 1/12/12

I just thought it might be interesting to compare similar style carvings, one carved by hand, and one carved primarily on a CNC machine, which, in a sense, is an ice sculpting robot. Ideally, both carvings would be the same design, but this is the best I can do for now. Before I tell you which one is which, I’ll let you take a guess. Don’t read the bottom section until you decide.



The Jockey Club sculpture was carved by hand with power engraving tools many years ago (at least ten) in Albuquerque, NM while the “All the King’s Men” piece was done last year, mostly on a CNC machine. My photographic skills have improved as of late, but I remember working for a long time on both the carving and the photo with the Jockey Club piece. As you’d expect, the King’s Men piece was a little easier to complete (once the design was sent to the machine.) You’ll notice that in the Jockey Club piece, the lettering is composed of strokes of pretty uniform thickness. With more time and effort, I could have improved this, but with a CNC’d piece, the lettering generally looks like the original font, complete with variations in stroke weight. Because of the block lettering on the King’s Men piece, you don’t get an opportunity to see the difference this time around. In fact, I had a little trouble with the lettering on the King’s Men piece; a few of the peninsulas broke out and the edges were a little rough. I think I was having some vibration issues on the spindle head. In most cases, however, I find it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between man and machine carved pieces; the machined pieces are just a little too perfect, in particular with lettering. But I’ll let you be the judge.



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Tags: CNC machine, snowfill engraving, logos