The team were recently requested to carve a two tonne unicorn ice sculpture for a big Christmas event in London. They began by fusing crystal clear blocks of ice together by lying them horizontally flat against each other inside a large container in the freezer. Once fusion had occurred, plastic horse toys were studied in order to provide accuracy for the designs from which the final piece would be created.
It took two weeks of hard work with chainsaws, grinders and traditional chisels to fashion this resplendent crowd pleaser from the original blocks. However, there were a couple of challenges to overcome with this piece. The first was that the unicorn was three meters tall and the freezer’s clearance height is 2.2 meters. This meant that the animal’s head and body had to be made separately and adjoined in situ.
The second issue arose when Ben accidentally walked into the sculpture knocking the hooves clean off. The good thing about working with ice is that this need not be a complete disaster. With the ice at a cold temperature and a clean join it’s possible to reset a break by flooding water through the cracks, packing with surplus ice and then re-carving that specific area. Problem solved!