Perfectly clear ice spheres are nifty but can be a bit tricky to make without an apparatus. [Seth Robinson] crafted a copper ice press to make his own.
Copper is well-known for its thermal conductivity, making it a perfect material for building a press to melt ice into a given shape. Like many projects, a combination of techniques yields the best result, and in this case we get to see 3d printing, sand casting, lost PLA casting, lathe turning, milling, and even some good old-fashioned sanding.
The most tedious part of the process appears to be dip coating of ceramic for the lost PLA mold, but the finished result is certainly worth it. That’s not to say that any of the process looks easy if you are a metal working novice. Taking over a week to slowly build up the layers feels a bit excruciating, especially compared to 3D printing the original plastic piece. If you’re ever feeling discouraged watching someone else’s awesome projects, you might want to stick around to the end when [Robinson] shows us his first ever casting. We’d say his skill has improved immensely over time.
If you’re looking for something else to do with casting copper alloys, be sure to checkout this bronze river table or [Robinson’s] copper levitation sphere.
Thanks to [DjBiohazard] for the tip!
I’ve said it before and will say it again. Check out my method for making ice spheres with no special equipment. Published on academics website. It is not at all tricky nor does it require anything more than ambient coat hanger and bucket of water. It’s called The Directional Freezing Method.
The story of how this invention was then developed by several Chinese companies to require special equipment and everything is even more interesting (to me)
“Alcademics”
This autocorrect is savage.
missed opportunity for “The Ice Crystal Method”
Missed opportunity for posting a URL to provide a convenient link people could click on, or cut and paste easily to view the referenced content.
Instead you gotta dig for a reference that combines 2 subjects, because most of the Google results are borderline useless.
https://www.alcademics.com/2013/05/perfectly-clear-ice-balls-a-clever-trick.html
There you are
Neat! Thank you for sharing
Different ways to get to the same result. Your solution is great to create one, but not great to do on a large scale. The video shows skills with different types of materials and methods to allow him to generate spheres on a larger scale. Your method works for a home user to create one. His method allows him to create a lot of them in a short time, which is great for a higher end cafe or restaurant. He did the ice creating at a different time using an easier method, making that easier to scale too.
I think the title has a typo and is meant to be MAKE instead of MAKW
Article on site corrected but still showing as “Makw” for me on Google discover feed / News
Thanks for the catch!
Should be fixed, but as Sengfroid mentioned, it might still be borked in feeds.