Monday, March 29, 2010

The final meltdown

So-- first thing: The ice park people were thinking about placing our saguaro into the Ice Museum! That's a refrigerated building downtown that's open all summer, and where the tourists can go to get their ice-art fix. Very cool, though it would entail chopping the saguaro up, and rebuilding it in the museum. However, due to severe melting (see next paragraph), this may no longer be an option, though there's still a chance we may rebuild one there.

The ice park's final day was yesterday, and most of the sculptures lasted up until the very end. Well, the last day, anyway. Warm temperatures these last couple days, combined with breezes have chewed up some of the sculptures somethin' fierce. A few had fallen over, while others were highly eroded nubs of their former selves. One, a single block "Cell R' Ice" was standing when we first walked by (before the lights were turned on for the night), and had fallen by the time we made it back around later that evening. Several statues were making faint cracking sounds.

I'll put up a few before/after shots when I get the chance.

Saturday, March 06, 2010

That's a wrap!


Wow, what an amazing week. I can barely type, my wrists and trigger finger are so sore. After 5 1/2 days of redesigning, sawing, grinding, chiseling, prying, dragging, scaffold climbing, gluing, freezing, more grinding, and torching, create "Sonoran Sunset". Now, all we need to do is a little more cleanup and drop off the lighting diagram and we're Done! Done! Done!



I wonder what we'll carve next year....

Thursday, March 04, 2010

Day 4 - Saguaro stands TALL

What a great day! The wall is finally complete, we've lifted our sections (mostly cut by Tim) onto the saguaro, which now stands at approximately 18 feet. Katie came in and whipped out a baby javelina (off camera), the cougar is now taking shape in its' cave, Jill's prickly pear pieces are in place. It's amazing to see it all coming together.

We had a mad rush, and ended at 2am last night, because we needed to get all large pieces glued into place so we could start working them today. Today, all the rest of the elements will probably be in place, so that tomorrow we can spend the entire day going over our sculpture and texturing it.

Right now, we have nearly 2 unused blocks worth of ice... which will go a little towards our river, but will likely remain mostly unused. oh well... the desert doesn't need to be crammed full of stuff, anyway. :)

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

next day....

The saguaro midsection has been carved, but is off camera. Also, some prickly pear. Katie arrived in the evening as we were mounting the cougar cave. Feelin' good! and tired.
Catch the action here, or at icealsaka.com
http://kiska.giseis.alaska.edu/Input/celso/iceSB2010.html

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

multiblock - second day

A really quick summary: We built wall. We built wall from 10am to 1am. As usual, there were plenty of little hangups, like pieces that don't quite connect. But, the wall is essentially done, and we can finally move on to other stuff. Today: Tim'll probably work on the cougar, Jill will probably work on her prickly pear, and I'll be running around like a chicken with his head cut off.

Monday, March 01, 2010

First day Recap

We started working with our ice as soon as the 9am horn sounded. Jill and Tim started by trimming the orange marker marks (made during the ice harvest) from the edges of the ice, and then cutting the white ice off of a block or two. Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out which ice blocks needed to go where for the wall, and strode around the site with a measuring tape trying to figure what-goes-where.

After leveling the site (a futile effort I was to learn) we pulled our first block up into position. That big vertical block in the back is going to be the base of our cougar, and anchor for the background wall.

Another block we had moved into a vertical position to stage right. That is going to be the base of the Saguaro. Unfortunately, we learned after the first cut, the saguaro block is riddled with fractures. Actually, most of our ice is very fractured. This may be a side-effect of such a low snow year, because the snow, which cushions the ice as the forklifts push, pull, and drop each bock, was AWOL. We got to experience this throughout the day as each of our blocks were in turn abused and fractured. Mimi, a few sites down, had one of her blocks completely crumble.

SOoo, with the ice not behaving ideally, we spent some time wandering around our site trying to decide just how bad the damage was. Our tool: An iron which we used to clarify the blocks enough to look inside. Our answer: pretty bad, but we'll give it a go. If things get really bad, we have the option to get 2 replacement blocks of ice.

One of the challenges we face comes from the depth of the ice. Our ice is somewhat thick this year, and while that's nice, it also means that even our longest chainsaw can't cleanly cut through an entire block in any direction. That's why you'll see us circling the blocks with chainsaws, and cutting in at both sides.

Our next little setback was when we tried to split the third block in two. The resulting pieces were to be stacked upon each other, making up the wall right next to the large vertical block. The back piece fell over and shattered. (another victim of little padding). We had to split the remaining piece to make up for this. We opted, however, to do it in smaller sections. which would also go to make up the wall. As for the shattered bits? They'll make nice craggy bits to top our wall.

All this took quite a while. Meanwhile, off camera, one block had the edges rounded off of it. That block was destined to become a prickly pear bush. Another block was marked to become the middle section for the saguaro.

Somewhat near the end, we had a couple blocks pushed into place and glued.

Lessons learned yesterday:
  • Whenever a block is going to change orientation or has the chance of falling out, scoop lots and lots of snow to cushion it
  • Think ahead of time about what ice is going to fall where, and make sure that nothing else you care about is nearby.
  • Get scaffolding early in the competition. We don't really have any, as it's all doled out to other teams.
  • Move thicker blocks and wrench them into position to carve, rather than trying to move anything delicate.

Today's assault: Finish the wall, get the saguaro to level2, start saguaro #2, and get the prickly pear into position. We may even get to cut out a block specifically for the cougar/cave, and another couple blocks for the javelinas. Of course, this plan is subject to change....