a score stick is a series of measured holes in a long piece of wood or metal that, in combination with an ice pick, allows you to quickly mark your ice for cutting.
updated 8/4/23 with seo and minor additions when it was added to the new site
score sticks, a do-it-yourself ice sculpting tool
There are a variety of tool solutions when you need to quickly measure and mark your ice for cutting. And once you start using a score stick or one of the other solutions, you’ll likely wonder how you got along without it. The score stick, pictured at top, is a simple tool consisting of a long piece of wood (1”x2”x23”) that has holes drilled in it to mark inches and half inches (or cm). At the zero mark, there’s a screw that sticks out on the other side.
An ice pick is used with the score stick to measure and mark lines and circles on the ice. The screw does the scoring, while the ice pick rides along the block edge or holds the circle center point. It doesn’t take long to make this tool and the time saved later on will be well worth it. At the bottom of the page, a video demonstrates how the score stick is used to mark an ice block for splitting.
ice picks work great with score sticks and T-scribes, but some, like the modified screwdriver version above are too big to fit in the holes. So those won’t work.
Alternatively, some carvers have sticks without the screw and they use two ice picks instead. This offers more flexibility, but might complicate things slightly.
Below, a photo of a T-scribe is shown. The T-scribe is used with an ice pick as well, but the ice pick marks the lines instead of the screw. The T-scribe offers more accurate lines, as the guide does a better job of keeping the stick perpendicular to the edge, but it can’t be easily used to mark circles.
As far as where you get one a T-scribe, I’m currently trying to find out if they’re still available. Iceculture used to make them, but I don’t know that they do anymore. Check back for that.
a T-scribe, for marking measured lines on your ice
watch for me using the score stick in this video
links and stuff
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