YouTube’s a great treasure trove of all things video, and I recently found another that’s been there for about a month. I’d heard for quite a while that Discovery Channel’s “How it’s Made” show had done a segment on ice sculptures, featuring a visit to iceculture, inc. in Canada. I’d tried to find listings in the past but I’d mostly only been able to find info about it on the Canadian version of Discovery Channel’s site. Apparently it has shown in the U.S., but I keep missing it.

    I don’t know if the video segment is complete, but I found two versions of it that are very similar, so it looks like it may in fact be complete. I thought the segment was well done and they got a lot of information into five or so minutes. As usual, however, everything is mostly true, but there’s a few things that could be tidied up because they’re crunched for time.

    The video first covers ice block production.  When the worker is checking the block thickness, it mentions that it has to be level. What they meant was that the entire block needs to be at least 10 inches thick. Otherwise, the block will have to freeze longer. The surface would never be anything close to level. The ice is almost always higher at the sides of the tank and a little lower near the pump due to the water action. When they’re vacuuming off the extra water, you can see the spot where the pump actually froze into the block and they had to break it out. A little later, when they’re cutting away the extra ice from the top of the block, they mention that there’s extra ice because of expansion during freezing. The difference in volume from water to ice is about 9%; ice takes up about 9% more space than water. One final thing: take a look at how many block machines iceculture has. I have no idea what their block production capacity is, but it’s impressive based on the view.

    One of the best parts of the video is the lathe demonstration. I don’t know where else you can see video of an ice lathe in action. When the bottle is torched, notice the black cap on the tubing end, which of course keeps water out of the tube during freezing. There’s another unseen cap at the other end of the tube. Later, the top and bottom of the luge will be cut into, the caps removed and a funnel added to the top of the tubing. Also notice that the Ketel One label has to have just the right curvature and positioning in the ice so that it fits properly within the bottle while it’s being cut.

    Many carvers will recognize the finished Ketel One vodka luges. Iceculture ships these luges, often along with full ice bars, all over the place; wherever Ketel One needs them. These ice pieces are a major part of Ketel One’s product promotion and as far as I know, iceculture makes all of their luges. Down below the two finished luges, you can see two other iceculture products: the stepped martini glass and the ice ball (check out a recent article on a ice ball mold machine that quickly makes ice balls before your eyes). Finally, despite what the narrator says, anyone who’s used a tube luge knows that the ice luge does NOT really chill the drink as it goes through the luge. It’s not in there for long enough and the tubing insulates it against the ice.

    On to the short carving demo. The carver is working on a fish fountain sculpture in what the narrator calls “the old-fashioned way.” The really old-fashioned way would involve chisels and hand saws rather than chainsaws and electric grinders, but I’m just being picky. The fish design is based on the old-style baroque dolphin. Jeff Stahl was the first carver that I saw carve this sort of sculpture. The tube coming out of the fish’s mouth runs back through the ice sculpture to the bottom of the block and during set up is attached to a pump sitting in a reservoir. The pump forces liquid (punch, for example) up through the fish and out its mouth, much like an old-style fountain. For the fountain to keep going, the punch has to find its way back to the reservoir, so you have to be careful where the fish spits! (don’t use a very strong pump)

    Finally, the carver, in full gear and covered in snow, is shown torching a swan sculpture. This is a bit of showmanship on Discovery Channel’s part, because she never actually carved anything on the swan sculpture. The swan is one of the designs that comes out of iceculture’s automated carving division, Artistic Ice Design. (here’s a link to their website catalog page that shows the swan: http://www.artisticicedesign.com/pages/swans.html)

    All in all, it’s a good segment and can be very educational if you pay close attention. I mentioned earlier that there are two versions of the segment. Oddly enough, there’s another version posted on Shoutfile with a male narrator and the Ketel One logos blurred out. Maybe this was the one that aired in the U.S.; I think they give degrees in Fahrenheit in it and it looks like it’s from the Science Channel. It’s kind of funny when the narrator points out how easy it is to see the Ketel One label when the worker torches the bottle. I guess Ketel One isn’t a sponsor... I’ve included it below.

P.S. A couple of hours after I posted this entry, I found the ice sculpture episode of “How it’s Made” on iTunes for two bucks. Guess I didn’t look for it hard enough...