Making clear ice....

[doctorjames]

Hi all

I need to make some clear ice, for a photography club 'challenge'.

The subject is 'water' and I want to show the three phases, gas (steam) liquid and solid (ice).

I have tried freezing filtered water, and tried freezing boiled water, but have yet to get nice 'clear glass' ice.

Any tips/pointers?.

Thanks

~James

[Peach]

Did you use filtered water when you boiled it? How many times did you boil it?

A friend of mine did this one time. She used filtered water and boiled it 2-3 times. She'd boil it, let it cool, then boil it again. If she felt like one more go, she'd boil it again. Then she'd dump it into the tray and freeze it.

I've never tried it, so I've no real experience with it other than watching her do it.

[kirbinster]

You did not check with your best friend "google" her is a youtube video on how to do it:

[IABoomer]

The things I'm reading suggest building up the ice in small layers, along with the boiling trick to force air out, and possibly a vibratory system to keep the water moving a bit while it freezes.

Or, you can fake it like many food photographers do and use something like acrylic cubes sprayed with glycerin and water for that wet look.

[NgaiHill]

Have you tried Google? Heaps of tips there.

The general consensus seems to be use distilled water AND boil it, possibly twice. Use metal ice cube trays and clean them first with the same distilled water. HTH.

[brianxlt]

If you use filtered or distilled water then run it though a coffee filter (new each time) a few times then freeze it very slowly.

[Jim Poor]

Originally Posted by IABoomer

Or, you can fake it like many food photographers do and use something like acrylic cubes sprayed with glycerin and water for that wet look.

This is the way!

[doctorjames]

Originally Posted by IABoomer

Or, you can fake it like many food photographers do and use something like acrylic cubes sprayed with glycerin and water for that wet look.

The trouble with this method, is that it is going to go onto a very hot metal plate, to give me the water and steam... im not sure how the acrylic is going to like that I should have said that sorry.

Thanks for your other hints and tips, I will have a look at the google stuff too. Trouble with youtube/google is that it is often full of crap... I generally get better advice here.

[Jim Poor]

Originally Posted by doctorjames

The trouble with this method, is that it is going to go onto a very hot metal plate, to give me the water and steam... im not sure how the acrylic is going to like that I should have said that sorry.

Thanks for your other hints and tips, I will have a look at the google stuff too. Trouble with youtube/google is that it is often full of crap... I generally get better advice here.

So, you're trying to show all three states at once . . .

Keep the plate cool, use a puddle of water and set the fake ice in it. Dry ice under the plate for steam.

-OR-

Use hot water in a cold environment to create the steam, that way the plate doesn't have to be hot.

[KurtM]

Hah --- let's see you get ^^^THAT^^^ from Google....