A more accurate title for this would be “man using machines by hand vs. machine programmed by man,” but that just doesn’t roll off the tongue does it? Anyway, this ain’t no Kasparov vs. Deep Blue, it’s more of a look at what newer technologies and developments can do for ice carving. And if you’re wondering what happened to Round 1, look way back in April of 2007 for that entry.

    This time, I have a better comparison to offer: Presidential Seal vs. Presidential Seal. In the first case, I hand carved a Presidential Seal sculpture for a Clinton visit to New Orleans, probably in 1999. (I also carved it again for a later visit.) Unfortunately, I currently only have a small photo available; I’ll change that if I find the original at a later date. I believe I used can type ice for the piece, but I carved away the white core and used only clear ice slabs. The sculpture was made up of three pieces of ice, one piece for a stabilizing base and two for the Seal itself. You’ll notice the weld through the center of the Seal is visible in the photo, especially on the right side. I used a template and spent a number of hours in the freezer working on the piece, carefully using a dremel and an 1/8” straight bit to cut all the snowfill lettering and details. For my efforts and to get the sculpture in place, I was rewarded with a trip through the security obstacle course that always accompanies a Presidential visit.

    In contrast, the second Seal was completed much more recently, for a December 2008 event, again in New Orleans. (No Presidential visit was involved this time, so set up was much simpler.) Lianne Rimer of Ice Pro designed the piece, using Dean Carlson’s I-Sculpt software. The sculpture was engraved on a flatbed CNC that originally came from Iceculture, but has since been modified to run designs created in I-Sculpt. The photo of this piece was taken a couple of hours after the event had started, and you can see a little bit of breakdown in the lettering, especially near the top of the sculpture. Better snowfill packing would alleviate some of that, but that was a minor issue in this case.

    Perhaps the most striking difference between the pieces (at least for me) is the weld lines, or in this case, the absence of one. As previously mentioned, the hand carved piece on the left has a weld line through the center of the Seal, while the machined piece has none. That’s because the second Seal was engraved on a single, oversized block of ice that Ice Pro calls a Monster Block. A second piece of ice was used as a stabilizing base. Using a Monster Block not only eliminates weld lines, but it makes the whole engraving process less complicated because you don’t have to account for that juncture between different pieces of ice. It’s apparent to me that the increased use of oversized pieces of ice will continue as a trend, simply because they are so useful when creating complicated engraved designs with a CNC machine.

    As for the engraving, there is a noticeable difference in the quality between the pieces. Despite several hours of tedious hand engraving in the freezer, the CNC still outcarved me, which is to be expected. The lettering is cleaner and more precise. The large engraved circles, which are particularly difficult to hand cut, are more uniform on the CNC piece. The eagle’s arrows and olive branch look better in the CNC piece and there is a very noticeable difference in the shields as well. Neither piece manages the “E PLURIBUS UNUM” in the banner above the eagle, but that’s asking a bit much at this point.

    In the end, the robot crushed me, but that’s largely because a Presidential Seal is precisely the type of design that a CNC is perfect for. When President Obama takes the time to visit the Gulf Coast, we’ll be ready to crank out a nearly perfect Presidential Seal for his visit if it’s needed. I’m happy to leave this sort of tedious carving to a machine. It leaves me time to create something new rather than just replicate something old.