CNC ice sculpting

For the modern ice sculptor, CNC ice sculpting has become almost a necessity. So here at ice sculpting secrets, I’ll talk a LOT about how to use CNC machines to create ice art. And this page is where to start for all things CNC ice sculpting on this site.

However, even more than other parts of the site, this page is DEFINITELY a work in progress. I’ve been using CNC machines for sculpting ice for over 15 years now. However, I’ve never had my own, in house CNC until recently. (I had half of one once, but that’s a long story best told over a beer or two…) Now though, I’ve got one! So this page will highlight my start-to-hopefully-never-finished relationship with my new CNC machine.

My main CNC experience is on two solutions, Laguna machines and the ice-sculpting focused I-Sculpt system. I’ll discuss why I chose one over the other (you kinda have to pick one!) and the strengths/weaknesses of each. But there are other systems as well, and those will be topics too!

There will be twists and turns I’m sure, so I’ll happily and unhappily detail them in my blog posts and here. Plus, I can talk about all my other CNC & ice experiences. I might even share that one time that I broke a couple bits on someone else’s CNC and never told them about it Totally not my fault though. I mean, how was I to know that that’s what would happen?!

This will also be a place to talk about the design software and how to deal with related issues. In addition, I can talk to people who know a crapload more than I do about CNC ice sculpting and share the conversations here. And a whole lot more! But we can talk about that later. For now, it’s nice to finally get started 🙂

Here are links to the so far relevant posts/pages that talk about CNCs on the site:

CNC: an ice sculpting robot
excited about my brand new CNC machine!
man versus machine
printing templates 2 ways, plus old school template and modern ones (I know that doesn’t sound like it’s CNC-related, but definitely part of it is!)

Also, these designs have significant info and pics related to CNC ice sculpting. (Eventually, there should be a LOT of designs on this list; I’m pretty sure I’m missing a bunch here.):

waving Easter bunny
colorful Easter eggs
sitting elephant
taco luge

However, if you take a look at some of the recently restored design posts (I don’t have a list, but there are a lot of them), you’ll see that I briefly talk about how I’d handle whichever design on a CNC. Or if I’d even sculpt it with a a CNC. Eventually, this should be a standard feature for ALL the designs. So CNC info will be integrated all over the site.

P.S. Check out the prediction/comment from way back in 2007 on the CNC: an ice sculpting robot page! Yup, that’s totally what happened!