lonely 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!

Step 1: Materials

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

Comments

[zombiefire]

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

[then]

wait... there were icicles on the inside of the baloon? How is that possible?

[zombiefire]

dont know but it was awesome

[KEYBOARDISBROKEN]

Ice crystals- freeze the water slow enough and you can grow some massive ones,
went out one November morning, had been just below freezing point all night- there where 10cm (4inch) ice crystals floating in the pond.

[tsmith36]

Makes me wish that I didn't live in a one room apartment. Ice art would be kinda cool for a retired truck driver to play with. A freezer and some racks, you could make them any time.

[Aron313]

What if you drop that form a high height? It looks like it would explode.

[L.Henk]

too bad your can't do it in the summer time(i live in nevada, it would be helpful)

[keithbraafladt]

Oh actually I made a lot of them in my freezer to test the shapes - smaller balloons though ;-)

[KillerPanda]

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!

[KEYBOARDISBROKEN]

a weather balloon full of water will be very heavy

[Eh Lie Us!]

What the...? i'm not sure what this would be good for but it's incredibly cool. (no pun intended) Now i wished that I lived in a cold-weather climate. thanks for the instructable!

[dylankunaikennedy]

epic finished product but is here any way i could keep it longer

[zombiehottie0900]

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

-JosiE-

[Sandisk1duo]

most balloons have that latex powder inside them

[knexfan9182]

You could try inverting the balloon.

[duck-lemon]

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...

[keithbraafladt]

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!

[artquilter]

Cool! I'll try and drop by.

[duck-lemon]

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

[hooloovoo33]

I'm around! Which lake is it on?

[keithbraafladt]

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...

[lukethebook333]

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

[ehensel1]

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

[keithbraafladt]

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

[the_burrito_master]

cool...

[beberly37]

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.

[keithbraafladt]

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)

[cx420ns]

if you really wanted to you could buy distilled water

[keithbraafladt]

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?

[cx420ns]

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

[shveet]

use a funnel?

[keithbraafladt]

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

[jongscx]

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

[beberly37]

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.

[Notags]

Pretty cool! Addition of food coloring would be interesting.

[keithbraafladt]

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

[guitarman63mm]

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!

[joren]

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

[BeanGolem]

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.