lonely ice teardrops

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by keithbraafladt

introlonely ice teardrops

This shows how to create a teardrop of ice . We're having an ice and art event at a local lake in Minneapolis and we're freezing water in anything that we can. Some things work, some things don't. Water becoming a solid is a beautiful thing!

lonely ice teardrops

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step 1Materials

What you'll need
- twine I use twine because it rough texture has great holding power when its frozen)
- balloons These are 12" round "Party" balloons. You need round balloons to get the proper teardrop shape. The seem thicker and stretchier than most of the balloons I tried
- washers

Materials

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29 comments	Add Comment

Feb 23, 2009. 7:28 AMzombiehottie0900 says:

boil the water first, then it should be clear and see through once frozen.

-JosiE-

Apr 4, 2010. 10:57 PMalex-sharetskiy says:

most balloons have that latex powder inside them

Apr 6, 2010. 9:48 AMknexfan9182 says:

You could try inverting the balloon.

Apr 4, 2010. 8:30 PMzombiefire says:

me and my bro froze a baloon full of water and in a few hours there were icicles on the insid goin in all crazy directions
.

it was awesome

Feb 24, 2009. 10:10 PMKillerPanda says:

Cool! now make one with a punching bag instead of a normal-sized balloon, then make one with a weather balloon. That would be impressive to say the least. 5 stars!

Jan 30, 2009. 11:31 AMduck-lemon says:

Wow great instructable, the photograph at the front makes it look like it is decorated in some way, of course a closer up picture proves otherwise but it does give you ideas...

Jan 30, 2009. 1:58 PMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

Thanks - yep we're trying a bunch of stuff with ice we plan to post here: Studio Bricolage
The ice/art event is coming up in Minneapolis Mn on the 8th of Feb... if you are around it hopefully will be cold and fun!

Feb 3, 2009. 6:01 PMartquilter says:

Cool! I'll try and drop by.

Jan 31, 2009. 8:10 PMduck-lemon says:

Sorry wrong hemisphere. Other than that there is nothing holding me back, it sounds like a lot of fun!

Jan 30, 2009. 4:12 PMhooloovoo33 says:

I'm around! Which lake is it on?

Feb 1, 2009. 9:18 AMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

south side of the skating rink on lake of the isles - hopefully it will be cold... yesterday ( Sat ) I lost a bunch of ice before I got it stored in the garage...

Feb 3, 2009. 5:01 PMlukethebook333 says:

neat instructable! any ideas if you don't have freezing temps? I'm guessing clearing out your freezer... Any other solutions?

Feb 3, 2009. 12:10 PM

ehensel1 says:

This is great! Now, how do I get led's in the ice?

Feb 3, 2009. 1:53 PMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

wire the led's with long thin insulated wire, attach to the washer ( making sure the led's leads are insulated as well and thread it in when you thread in the washer for weight

Feb 1, 2009. 4:06 PMthe_burrito_master says:

cool...

Jan 30, 2009. 10:28 AM

beberly37 says:

I am pretty sure that if you boil the water first you remove all of the disolved gases and the ice will be very clear. Though if you do, I would switch to fishing line and a clear weight, or a weight that would be interesting.

Jan 30, 2009. 1:50 PMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

Yep - good idea - but I have a lot of these to make so I skipped that step ( have to boil a lot of water - like one teapot for each and let it cool then figure an easy way to get it into the balloon)

Feb 1, 2009. 10:49 AMcx420ns says:

if you really wanted to you could buy distilled water

Feb 1, 2009. 2:10 PMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

good point then the issue again is getting the distilled water into the balloon with the same ease I have with the faucet... if there were an easy way to pressurize larger quantities of the distilled water then it'd be easy to fill the stretchy balloons... thoughts?

Feb 1, 2009. 3:45 PMcx420ns says:

hmmm.... seltzer bottle? a funnel wouldn't work too good... ooh! a garden pesticide sprayer!!!!!! biznitches! and the nozzle's small enough for the balloon to go on good

Feb 1, 2009. 2:13 PMshveet says:

use a funnel?

Feb 1, 2009. 3:49 PMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

Yes but as well as the small opening - what makes it possible to fill the balloon with the faucet is pressure...

Feb 1, 2009. 4:29 PMjongscx says:

How about something used to pump water... Like a water pump. Think garden fountain.

Feb 1, 2009. 6:41 PM

beberly37 says:

Hot tap water will have less dissolved gases than cold tap water making the ice more clear. Not as clear as boiled water, but better than nothing. Also us a garden nozzel instead of a sink. No aerator.

Jan 30, 2009. 8:55 AMNotags says:

Pretty cool! Addition of food coloring would be interesting.

Jan 30, 2009. 1:52 PMkeithbraafladt (author) says:

Yes cool idea! but playing with color in frozen water is a lot trickier than I / we thought - the color tends to settle while it freezes.. any suggestions on how to color it and leave it transparent are welcome

Jan 30, 2009. 10:46 AMguitarman63mm says:

That's an incredibly deceptive photograph you have there! I thought it was a droplet that was as large as your house O.o Nice 'ible!

Jan 30, 2009. 9:32 AMjoren says:

This is really cool! I guess the next step would be figuring a way to make the ice clear, no air bubbles, like carving ice

Jan 30, 2009. 8:44 AM

BeanGolem says:

You know... I would try this, except I just rode my bike to work (8am) and it's about 80F out. Very nice shape though. It's always nice to just let physics do it's thing.

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