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The ice sculpture business has seen rapid growth in recent years, as increasingly detailed carvings are becoming a sought-after centerpiece for a wide range of special events (such as weddings, business meetings, birthday parties, etc.). The ice carving business has matured from relying on a few highly experienced master carvers to one in which designs are produced via CAD software and reproduced to a high level of accuracy on CNC ice routers. One of the leading companies in this business is Ice Sculpture Inc. (www.icesculptureinc.com), founded by Jim Duggan. Duggan saw CAD/CAM methods being used in sign making and thought it could be applied to his industry in a similar manner. One example of a typical commercial project for Ice Sculpture Inc., is producing a 1/3-scale carving of a NASCAR racer. Duggan does this for the Atlanta Motor Speedway VIP Club. The company made a model of 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Tony Stewart’s car (pictured, above). The car and display stand consisted of nine blocks of ice (each measuring 40-by-20-by-10 inches and weighing 300 pounds). The routercarved car included logos for Chevrolet, Goodyear Tire, Old Spice, Office Depot, and yes, Ice Sculpture Inc. This car would have taken several days to produce using the traditional method of drawing a template to define the profile of the sculpture, gluing each template on a block of
ice, removing the excess ice with a chain saw, and cutting out the logos with chisels and hand power tools. (This traditional method is not only time-consuming but also prone to inaccuracies). Duggan instead imported a raster image of a side view of the car into his ArtCAM software (www.delcam.com) and converted it to the vector format required for producing CNC programs. He then scaled the template to the 1/3-size of the ice sculpture. Duggan also obtained raster images of each of the logos that appear on the car and converted them to vector format. Next he created a standard-size ice block and copied it six times. He moved and trimmed the blocks until they fit together to make up the body of the vehicle. Then he generated the four tires of the vehicle from another ice block and combined two blocks together to make the display stand. Duggan used the ArtCAM Center Vector feature to center the logos across the width of the vehicle. Next he used the software to generate CNC code for his Ice Bulldog Pro CNC router from LSI Automation (www.lsiautomation.com) to produce very crisp and exact ice sculptures. “The car took about four hours to design and about four hours to cut on the CNC router,” said Duggan. “We can now produce the highest quality ice sculptures in half the time that would be required to produce them by hand.”
To create Krusty the Clown, 400+ sheets of foam were cut.
The sections were bolted and attached to a space frame.
photos courtesy of adirondack studios.
photo courtesy of ice sculpture inc.
Carving on Ice
signshop.com
April 2012 // Sign Builder Illustrated
35