see the little bag attachment for the electric blower in the photo? I haven’t figured out an ice carving use for that yet. Pic courtesy of Ice Crafters.
updated 8/8/23 when restored to the site; stuff about lobotomies 😳, CNCs, etc. added
an electric blower has a variety of uses
You know how once buy a certain piece of equipment and start using it, you say to yourself: “Dang, I wish I’d bought this years ago!”? (Okay, maybe you don’t say “Dang.”) Well, I said something similar to myself when I got an electric blower. Like the nailboard, the electric blower can be one of those really useful ice sculpting tools that you’ll use over and over again. (I use mine almost every time that I carve, at least in the freezer.) Unfortunately, it’s also one of those tools that you might feel like you can get by without until you’ve got some extra money (which never really happens).
Here’s what I frequently use my blower for in the freezer (or when it’s cold outside):
sculpture cleanup
It’s very good for quickly blowing snow and small ice shards off of a sculpture, especially when used in combination with a brush or small spatula to break up stubborn clumps of snow. This tool is particularly useful for clearing off large, oversized pieces. In Alaska, at the Ice Art Championships, for example, it’s invaluable. And with CNC machines, so much of the ice is often converted into snow. You have to be able to efficiently get it off the sculpture surfaces.
general cleanup
I use it to knock snow out of hard-to-get-to spots and like a leaf blower to push snow into manageable piles. This is a little bit like herding cats, so it’s not a solution by itself, but it can make cleanup much quicker, especially when you go with the option of just blowing all the snow under something so that you can’t see it any more.
I also use it to clear snow off of my CNC and blow meltwater off my warm spindle.
engraving cleanout
If you’re adding color to a piece by backside engraving, then it’s really important to get all the snow out of the engraving so that it doesn’t get in the way of the color. One way to get the snow out (as long as it’s cold and the snow is dry) is to blow it out with this tool, using an ice pick or small chisel to help dislodge snow stuck in corners. Now the moving air will warm up the ice a little, so it needs to be pretty cold, but it works well.
Nowadays with my CNC machine, I use my electric blower for this all the time. My blower in fact, is usually parked right by my CNC, for use both with general cleanup and blowing snow out of engraved ice.
downsides, etc.
Now of course all tools have downsides, things that are maybe undesirable aspects. Like how a chainsaw can cut your arm off or an ice pick was also used for lobotomies. You know, downsides 
An electric blower has downsides too. The main thing is that it will blow stuff around that maybe you don’t want blown around. Like if you’re sand or glitter painting your ice, an electric blower is the last tool you want to pick up.
But it also blows around stuff that you might not have considered to be a problem. It’s great at blowing snow out of your ice. Maybe too good. It’s super hot and humid in Nola sometimes and I’m ALWAYS keeping an eye on my freezer temps when it is. I like my freezer temp to be between 15 and 18˚F. If it’s hot that day and my freezer temp is much above 20˚F, I might skip using my electric blower and opt to brush snow off by hand.
Now why in the world would I do that? Well, an electric blower blows snow everywhere. My evaporator fans are also blowing all the time. When I blow snow into the air, it can easily be sucked up onto the backside of my freezer’s evaporator, which of course will start degrading the efficiency of my freezer as snow and ice build up on it (which the defrost cycle will eventually get rid of). But if my freezer is struggling already, the last thing I want to do is make things harder for it.
Oh, and one other thing, if you don’t sculpt ice in a freezer, or maybe outside when it’s below freezing, don’t bother with this tool. It’s pretty useless for ice sculpting then.
alternatives
One alternative to this tool is to use a hose attached to an air compressor. The compressed air option works well when it’s only needed in one place, like in a studio freezer. The compressor is on the outside of the freezer and the hose runs into the freezer through a hole in the wall.
However, if you need portability, the Makita blower is better, as long as you have access to an electrical outlet. If you DON’T have easy outlet access, there’s always the battery version, but it’s not as powerful. But the plug-in version is small, lightweight, and pretty powerful. It’s not quite as powerful as the blower that knocked over Junichi’s sculpture this year, but it’s probably not far off.
ok, this is actually not the blower that I use the most. My plug-in electric blower is more powerful, so I use it more often than this still-useful battery version.
links and stuff
This post is listed on the ice sculpting techniques page and the ice sculpting tools page. It also shows up in the featured my ice sculpting toolbox post. Plus, you could also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page. You can comment there as well as below. And if it won’t LET you comment below, then definitely comment on fb and/or IG. Thanks!
