cutting corners on pieces that you’re going to weld together can be problematic, like with this large Seal of the President of the United States sculpture. But there are ways to not only avoid breaks, but will help you move a slippery circular sculpture like this one. This sculpture, by the way, was for a Presidential visit and SUCKS to engrave by hand 😩
updated 7/29/23 with seo, clarifications, etc. But I probably should just rewrite the whole thing!
carefully cutting corners
Now it sounds at first like this could be a post about shortcuts. But it’s not about cutting corners THAT way. It’s about actually cutting corners while you’re sculpting ice.
It’s pretty obvious that the corners of sculptures can be pretty vulnerable to damage. A while back, 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.
However, corners aren’t just vulnerable when you’re moving ice sculptures. They’re also super vulnerable while you’re sculpting. They’re easy to break while you’re making cuts and they sometimes get damaged during welding.Â
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. (Like in the illustration down below.) 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. 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 convenient control point. Once the piece is in place, just cut the extra ice off with a hand saw or sharp chisel 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, I’ll frequently 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.
cutting corners is a bit different with CNCs
Now, most of the previous info was about hand sculpting. If you’re using a CNC machine, it’s often a bit different when you’re cutting corners. That’s mainly because the bed of the CNC is usually the flattest and most level spot in the shop. Or at least it should be. Because your ice is pretty evenly supported, it’s less likely to drop and/or put stress on weak areas. So breaks are less likely. You can still break your corners for sure, it just doesn’t happen nearly as often while cutting with a CNC.
links and other stuff
You might also find photos and info from this entry on the ice sculpting secrets Instagram account or the facebook page and you can comment there as well as below. Plus, it’s also linked to on the ice sculpting techniques page. There you’ll also find many other ice sculpting techniques, assuming I haven’t been totally effing lazy…
