Building a Snowman

[hvacmd2002]

My wife thinks I'm nuts. I just built a shop/garage behind my house. The downstairs I'm going to use for a workshop and storage. Upstairs I'm going to turn into my own personal video arcade. I have lots of old units like Pac Man and Galaga. We'll put blacklights, rope lighting and some glow-in-the-dark carpeting. I'm going to try to make it like the arcades I spent big $$ in back in the early 80's.

So, I thought it'd be neat if I put a small condensing unit in the garage or outside, and fabricated some type of evap coil upstairs, just a coil, no fan, so it ices up nicely. We have a theme park where I live where they have the "North Pole" which is an iced up pole(evap) about 8" in diameter and 5' high. I'm thinking of building some type of snowman, sculpture, or tubing bent to form a sign. I figure it'd be a neat conversation piece when my kids (4 & 8) bring their friends over.

I'd really like to build the snowman. How to get the shape tho? Any ideas?

And have any of you guys ever used your skills for anything unconventional like this? What's the neatest thing you've ever done with your skills?

[condenseddave]

You could bend 3/8 tubing into the shape you want, and make multiple passes the same way. If you went two dimensional, you could build a pattern from plywood, and make the bends.

Use a LARGE suction accumulator, also.

I would definitely go with a TXV and a really good drainable drip pan beneath this creation.

3 dimensional would be more difficult, but not impossible.

You could even add a humidifier nearby to help Frosty grow...

[mccool]

At SAIT (local Calgary tech school) they have built several such items over the years. One being the Stanley Cup which I hear was plugged back in when the Flames made the playoffs and apparently still running and building frost. Maybe mspanky can snap a picture to post?
HVACmd you need a pong table to add to your collection?

[mspanky]

Hey, you beat me to it.

Consider it done, I'll take my camera to school tomorrow. I was asked to make a Calgary Flames stencil so we can spray it up and try to get the Sun to take a photo of it with the 4th year class.

I think the unit has finally maxed out unless we store it outside where it's still below 65.

SAIT now has a fully functional and perfectly scaled down ice rink complete with little chiller (24x6"), glycol pump / tank, mini Blanchard-ness condensor. Everything a rink has minus the ammonia and it actually looks and works like the real deal. I want it to make a 'real' air-hockey table, without the air of course. You shall see...

[cynic]

I think your wife is right

For the snowman how about something sort of like a manitowic ice machine plate but done in copper ? 3 circles and some tube brazed to the back of it. Black rubber plugs or something that ice wont tend to form on for the eyes and stuff.

[hvacmd2002]

Originally posted by cynic
I think your wife is right

For the snowman how about something sort of like a manitowic ice machine plate but done in copper ? 3 circles and some tube brazed to the back of it.

I was thinking more of a 3D sculpture. I could coil some 3/8" copper, spaced maybe 1" apart between layers, to make 3 balls. Just wondering when the ice filled in the gaps between coils, if it would be a smooth outline. Or maybe get some copper sheets, cut it into strips, and braze it to join 2 coils horizontally, then more strips to join the next two above it, and so on. So it would have horizontal bands of copper encirling the copper coils.

Thanks for the input

[chilly1]

how big do you want it. For a small snowman use the copper floats that are used in cooling towers I have seen them as large as 18 inches...

[selfemployed]

If or when you get it done show a pic. Good luck

[mspanky]

Here's a couple of pictures from school. The 1st pic is large, so I'm sorry if you're on dial up. (no, not really)

[frozensolid]

Refrigeration art, I just have to love it.

Very Cool, Very Creative.

[selfemployed]

I can see I've been wasting my time doing service work. That's to cool.

[mccool]

Nice Spanky but what about the logo.

[frozensolid]

Has that beer bottle ever been iced (run). It looks cool, can it take the weight of the ice?

[Dowadudda]

Thats some pretty cool stuff. It's awesome. There has been some great minds and just a cool thing going on here at this site lately. This is one great example of how awesome we all collectively are.

I could see in weird way how this product might be marketable, if it aint yet. Very cool..

[mccool]

I've often thought this would make a great hobby and possibly profitable one also. There must be a market these days for such items, build em and rent out to beer stores, carnivals, whatever. The configurations are limited only by your imagination and what the customer wants. These units were created many years ago by tech classes as a cool exercise in welding and sizing. As far as I know they are all functional and build their ice on their own ice without misting or spraying ( defrost clocks not required). I went to the same tech school but missed out on the building of any of these units. I'm guessing most date back to 1989 to early 90's. Mspanky, when were these created and how's that Gateway donated rack, do we need to invest some time to tweak it. I'd like to see that unit working well, and possibly upgraded to suit the times.

[Edited by mccool on 05-15-2004 at 03:09 AM]

[condenseddave]

Neat.

But you've got entirely too much free time.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY too much.

[mccool]

Guess thats why these were built in school, rarely do 20 fridys have that kind of time. After seeing these if I was to build a snowman I'd use rolls of 3/8 soft wrapped around 3 balls of diminishing circumfrence, lines spaced accordingly with a few welded on supports and features like nose, eyes, buttons, etc. Hook up to the right size condensing unit and plug in. Frosty lives!

GO FLAMES GO

[mccool]

Originally posted by mccool
Nice Spanky but what about the logo.

Just had to reply to myself to keep this burning! This city is going nuts with every win! Step out in your backyard in Suburbia and hearing horns and cheers from all sides,for hours on end lol. Thousands getting on the trains to converge upon downtown.
No tan for Stanley this year!

GO Flames Go

[mccool]

HVACMD where'd ya go!

[hvacmd2002]

Originally posted by mccool
HVACMD where'd ya go!

Oh...sorry mccool. Too many long days and late nights lately. I'm buried. But anyway, yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Very neat sculptures there. I wonder if there's a way to smooth them out though. If you wanted a smooth flat or rounded surface, how to make it?