mdesaxe

Thank you all for your likes and comments. Now that I have completed two of the model projects--1:250 scale Imperial German Navy Monitor Mosel and 1:250 scale Imperial and Royal Navy Danube River monitor Leitha (both in Ready for Inspection)--that I had started before beginning Uragan I feel comfortable returning to it. (You may notice a subject theme now!) I suspect that cowl ventilators must be the bane of their existence for both paper model designers and builders. The overwhelming majority of cowl ventilators have bowl shaped cowls. There are a very few that function by taking advantage of the venturi effect and have conical cowls with small holes at the rear but these are very exceptional. The design and construction challenge is to produce a bowl shape using paper, which inherently is flat. Designers have tried several different approaches, amongst which are a series of wedge-shaped rings that stack to make the bowl. Some use petal shapes that curve into a bowl. Or the commonest which uses a shaft extended at the upper rear to form the lower part of the bowl and a second element that curves into a modified cone (often simply settling for a cone and trying to finesse the issue). Mörck supplies this last type of cowl ventilator, so I decided I needed to do what I could to end up with a respectable approximation to a bowl shaped cowl. I started by rolling the shaft itself in the conventional way. After cutting out the cowl part, I used a simple domed hard wood tool I have fabricated to simultaneously roll the cowl part into a conical shape and dish the paper as I rolled it by pressing it onto a semi-resilient pad (a folded paper towel works well, as does the palm of my hand). I found that if I persisted with this process the paper formed itself into quite a reasonable approximation to a bowl. After butt joining the small ends of the piece, I let it dry thoroughly and then glued it to the shaft. Again, the assembly was allowed to dry thoroughly, after which I carefully used the dome tool to press the assembly onto the semi-resilient pad. The end result was quite satisfactory. I admit I had to apply a coat of white acrylic ink (not paint, which is too thick) to eradicate some variations in tone on the outside from handling. The inside of the cowl I painted red with watercolour paint. Here are all five of Uragan's ventilators installed on the deck. Some paper model builders have suggested dampening the paper of the cowls to make it easier to create the bowl shape. I must admit that the idea of doing this makes me nervous (I have had some unfortunate outcomes from dampening paper parts in the past) but I may very well try it on a future project. The next challenge will be making the ship’s boats and their davits. Thank you for looking and for your encouragement. Maurice

As you will observe, my wife prevailed, so I finished another almost-complete project before moving forward with Uragan! This is my just completed model of the Imperial and Royal Navy’s Danube River monitor Leitha. Leitha was one of a pair of river monitors (the other was Maros) commissioned in 1872. After almost fifty years of front-line service conducting operations in most of Austria’s wars in the period (and participating in an attempted revolution), Leitha was ‘sold commercial’ (I think this is the correct English expression) and became an elevator gravel barge for the next seventy-five years. In 1992 a group of enthusiasts purchased the barge and began a five-year process of restoring the vessel into the earlier state as a monitor, mostly using volunteers as a labour force. Leitha now is a floating museum ship in Hungary. My model was built from a 1:250-scale paper kit published by JSC of Poland. JSC has a very individual approach to the structural design of its publications. In this case, the entire hull is built around a box girder structure from bow to stern and the final shape created by adding skins over formers attached to the box. It took me quite a long time spent studying the diagrams and the parts themselves before I felt comfortable to progress to the construction itself. This JSC kit is not as well detailed as the publications of some other companies. For example, some details are indicated only two-dimensionally by printing them onto the deck. Fortunately, I had two excellent references for this vessel: Friedrich Prasky’s Donaumonitoren Österreich-Ungarns von 1872 bis zur Gegenwart (Neuerwissenschlaftlicher Verlag: Vienna, 2004) and Georg Pawlik, Heinz Christ & Herbert Winkler’s Die K.u.K. Donauflotille 1870-1918 (H. Weishaupt Verlag: Graz, 1989). Be forewarned; these both are written in Austrian German and use the Imperial and Royal Navy’s technical terminology, which can be quite different from German German (the Imperial and Royal Navy’s immediate ancestor was the fleet of La Serenissima--the Republic of Venice—and this strongly influenced its terminology). Nevertheless, the information is these two works is priceless when building models of these intriguing warships. The outcome was that I added quite an amount of extra detail to my model of Leitha. I added laser-cut paper ladders and railings and substituted model railway chain for the anchor cables. I scratch built bollards from rolled paper tubes capped with punched paper discs. I added scratch-built masts, flag staffs, bitts, steam pipes, davits, anchor davits, mooring posts, a siren, and a galley chimney from brass rod. The two pumps were scratch built from brass tube and rod soldered together. The hawse pipes and cable fairleads are from copper tube. JSC produces a set of laser-cut card details for this kit but I used only part of it: the steering wheel, the anchors, the landing brows, and the interior details and rudder for the boats. Rigging and the tackles on the davits are from chemically blackened fine copper wire. I made the ‘Danube River’ and the plinth in the same way as for my model of the German monitor Mosel. Similarly, the sailors are modified suitable Preiser Z-scale figures. The gig, in this instance, was modified from JSC’s provided parts with the crew’s oars from brass wire and paper. My wife and I used to row as crew of racing pilot gigs, so this element certainly brought back memories! Building this model was definitely most enjoyable and a great opportunity to learn (I think I worked out a much better construction sequence than with Mosel this time!) but I know it still has its faults--I probably should replace or scratch build the jollboot. Thank you for taking a look. I hope you too like it . Maurice

Thanks again to all of you for your kind comments and likes. All members of the extended monitor family were wet ships. Low freeboard was a central element of Ericsson's design concept for the type. If anything, these German river monitors had more freeboard than many of their siblings, at least amidships at the casemate. I also imagine that people going for a jaunt might well wish to avoid becoming wet, especially considering the fashions of the time--wet long skirts would become very uncomfortable very quickly. Maurice

Thank you all for the nice replies and likes! These monitors were designed with flooding tanks to sink them in action so that only part of the casemate was above water. I do not know if this was done ever except maybe during acceptance trials. Nevertheless, the design freeboard (with the tanks empty) was only about 50cm fore and aft. This idea is not original to me. I adapted it from the process used by a very fine miniature ship model builder in England, Jim Baumann. My method differs in details but broadly follows his idea. Thanks again. Maurice

This is my just completed model of the Imperial German Navy’s river monitor Mosel. Mosel and a sister, Rhein, were designed and ordered to strengthen the river border defences of the new German Empire against France after the Franco-Prussian War. They entered service in 1874 but operated actively only for about two years and were disposed of within ten years. They were not very successful; they even were reputed to have considerable difficulty in making any headway upstream against the current at certain times of the year when the rivers were full. The model is a 1:250-scale paper kit published by Paper Shipwright. I closely followed the original but enhanced a few deck details, substituted model railway chain for the provided anchor cables, and added laser-cut paper ladders and railings. The included awning stanchions totally defeated me. This is not a reflection on David Hathaway’s design but a result of my own ineptitude. After three failed attempts, I surrendered and made them from brass rod and strip soldered together. The rigging is chemically blackened very fine copper wire. The ‘river’ is heavy Indian hand-made watercolour paper with a rather suitable rippled surface. After cutting out a recess for the hull, I spray painted the paper using grey, green, and blue car body touch-up aerosol cans. The gloss finish was clear coat varnish from the same source. I then joined the paper to a panel of 3mm black foam core board which I fastened to a wooden base that is a survivor of a number I made quite a few years ago that somehow I neither lost nor discarded during many moves. I used very strong double-sided tape to join the layers, the kind that is intended to hold down carpets so that Grandmère does not slip on them. The 'river' base is 26cm by 20cm. There is a 3mm rebate around the paper and foam core to accommodate a clear dust cover when I get around to making it. The steam launch was scratch built from paper except for the steering pedestal and wheel. These were made from a modified 1:700-scale turned brass bollard for the pedestal, whilst the wheel is a photo-etched brass item from a White Ensign small boats set. The people are modified Preiser Z-scale figures. I really like the vitality and variety of poses of Preiser’s figures but I find I have to be rather selective when using them for my ship models. Preiser’s figures are 1:220 scale but the ships are 1:250 scale. The difference may seem small but a Z-scale figure 8mm tall is a 2 metre tall person at 1:250 scale, not impossible but quite unusual. Fortunately, Preiser makes these figures with a variety of statures and the excess height can be less noticeable when they are in an action pose or seated. I began this model some time before starting my Russian monitor Uragan but I decided I needed to finish it before it gathered too much dust or suffered damage. This has slowed progress on Uragan but I will continue its WIP very soon. On the other hand, my wife thinks I should first finish at least one of the two almost completed Austro-Hungarian monitors that appeared in the background of the initial photographs of Uragan, so it may be a little longer before I return to the WIP. Building Mosel was very enjoyable and I learned a lot, not least the importance of sequencing construction so that parts fixed in place do not obstruct or excessively complicate later procedures. A good example is that it would have been much wiser to fit the two large ventilators forward of the funnel after completely detailing the bridge area. The model is not perfect--I am very much aware of some deficiencies or mistakes—but I hope you enjoy it, too. Maurice

This brings up an interesting point about the differences between the dimensions of Glorious, Courageous and Furious. The former pair had a beam of 81 feet, the last a beam of 88 feet. Unfortunately, manufacturers of waterline kits of Furious have taken this to mean that the hull should be a scale 7 feet wider. In fact, all three had the same beam at deck level but Furious had deeper bulges, which is invisible unless one builds a full hull model. Maurice

I have started working on making up al the small fittings that add so much interest to the appearance of ships of this era. The anchor bitts, two sizes of bollards, and the fairleads all were Mörck’s parts. The bitts and bollards are not difficult to make but it is a quite monotonous project—rolling a dozen or so tiny paper tubes and capping them with punched discs of the appropriate size. The fairleads, however, are very small (4mm by 2mm by 2mm) and end up with rather thin sections, so they gave me quite some challenge to make them. I do not like using CA glue for assembling paper models because it bleeds instantly into the card and discolours it permanently (there will be no prizes for working out how I discovered this, nor for guessing my reaction to the discovery!). Nevertheless, to strengthen the fairleads I added a tiny amount of CA to each one as I completed it. This stiffened them and allowed me to use a small file for final shaping. They finally were painted very dark grey before installation. Even using CA, my wastage rate was quite high—I had to attempt eleven fairleads in order to end up with the six I needed for the model. I received some additional information from a correspondent in Riga. Amongst other things, it made clear that the galley I made originally was too narrow from side to side, so I have made a new version of the correct dimensions. When adding small parts that are tall relative to their base diameters, I like to set pins in position to increase their stability. These pins, short lengths of either plastic or brass rod, do not need to fit tightly but they make the pieces much more secure. Here is an overall view of Uragan at this point. You can see several plastic pins here that are waiting for the ventilation cowls—which come next. Thank you all for following this project. Maurice

When they first entered service these Russian monitors, like their American counterparts, had very little in the way of superstructure. This changed greatly later in their careers but initially the most prominent superstructure feature was a small boxlike structure towards the stern which housed the galley (not found on American monitors which employed a portable ‘cook box’ on the open deck). One odd feature was that the forward half of the roof was hinged to lift upwards, possibly to cool the interior in the summer. I made the galley from plain white card with a door (and its window) added. I painted the roof with medium grey watercolour, drew in the hinge line, and added a piece of painted brass rod for the galley stack. On the American monitors, almost everything else on the deck was detachable and stowed below when clearing for action. This included the unusual skylights that taper outwards from the base to increase the glazed area and the cowl ventilators (the openings left by the removal of these fittings were sealed with plates to keep out water and shot). Even the bollards were detachable so that they would not become shot traps. The Russian monitors duplicated this distinctive feature. Since my model is not to be cleared for action I needed to make all the fittings that clutter the deck the rest of the time. I made most of these from Mörck’s parts modified as necessary. First came the skylights. These needed to be white, so I made them from the parts supplied but assembled inside out and used dark blue-grey paper that matched the deck lights I made previously to replicate the glazing. My spare parts collection was the source for the two canvas-covered ‘heads’ which, despite their name, are right aft. Thank you all for your time and I hope you keep following as I add fittings. Maurice

Thank you for all the liked and comments. I do not think I would recommend using a finger tip as the yielding surface when working with brass, though! The last large structure to construct for this project is the funnel. The funnels of these Russian monitors were much taller than those of their American counterparts (8.75m versus 6.25m or less), probably to increase the draft for the furnaces because they had to use poorer quality coal than the Pennsylvania anthracite available to the US Navy. I used Mörck’s design as a pattern, added height to match my drawings, and marked it out. Initially I tried using a piece of yellow file folder for the funnel but this proved to be too thick and insufficiently flexible and homogeneous for the work.+ Instead I used a leftover piece of yellow card stock. I drew the plating divisions with a hard pencil and coloured the top section black using a permanent marker, masking the edge with Kabuki tape. I also painted the reverse side very dark grey using a watercolour brush tip pen to avoid any possible bleeding through of the colour to the front from choosing to use a marker again. After making the basic piece, a layer of 1mm card formed the basis for the armour around the bottom of the funnel and more thin yellow card stock ensured a finished appearance. A circular strip of the same card created the rain protection gutter/air intake. The steam pipe is from a length of painted brass rod. From this point on, the project will progress less rapidly because the work ahead is making and adding all the fittings that litter the decks of late 19th-century warships. Maurice

You are quite correct, unfortunately. Both are people I got to know personally to some extent when I was working in the United States and it is devastating for them. Maurice

You might want to stock up on Gator products. Kenny Loup, who is its manufacturer, had his house and shop all but destroyed by the recent Hurricane Laura. Maurice

For the deck (black in Mörck’s kit) I used a grey file folder. I printed out the deck on the obverse of my card and then used a needle point to transfer the layout arrangement of the characteristic ‘tiles’ of US Navy monitor deck armour to the visible side, drawing in its delineation with a very hard pencil. I printed out a copy of the deck on very thin paper, punched out the deck lights and coaling scuttles, and glued them onto my grey deck. I also marked the positions of various skylights and deck fittings (bollards and the like). Finally, I sealed everything with several light sprayed coats of clear flat lacquer (applying water-based finishes to large areas of paper or card is a really bad idea). After inserting the turret from below, I installed the deck. To prepare the hull sides I used Kabuki tape (it comes off without tearing the card) to mask along the bottom edge of Mörck’s black hull sides and represented a red lower hull with a permanent marker (these bleed very little into the card, if at all). The white sheer stripe was 0.4mm dry transfer striping (I dislike dry transfers, but I detest waterslide decals even more!) To protect this work, I again sealed everything with several light sprayed coats of clear flat lacquer. I then measured the height of the stem and stern using tick strips (I worked my way through university in a boatbuilding yard—I quickly learned never to rely on a ruler for measurements!). I transferred the heights to the hull sides, measuring downwards from the sheer, and cut the sides to match, which left a small amount of red anti-fouling visible. I hope that this project is of interest. Maurice

At one time I used to do this. My most ambitious effort was using the 1:250-scale Wilhelmshavener kit for USS Forrestal as in 1956 to build a model to the same scale from styrene and perspex. It was just over 1.2 m long and 30 cm wide, and had a matching Fletcher class destroyer modified from the Wilhelmshavener kit for the Federal German Z-1. Neither survived multiple moves around the world and I do not think I would attempt such a project again! An acquaintance of mine is building a mid-eighteenth-century sloop in wood using a Shipyard (of Poland) paper kit as a pattern. It will be interesting to see how it works. Thanks very much again for your interest in this rather esoteric project. Mörck’s design envisages a rotating turret (not something I want for a static display model). To that end, he envisaged fitting the turret through the deck from below. Nevertheless, I did not want to deviate too much from his construction procedure so the next step was to build the turret. The upper segment of his Catskill turret was black, so I cut it away and replaced it with a suitable strip of white card. I glued a wider strip of tracing paper on the back to strengthen the join, burnished the front face to minimise the join’s prominence, and added the rivet detail with pencil dots. I find I have to have a different mental approach to building models in card from how I approach building a plastic or even wooden model. It is essential to pre-shape card parts to the correct configuration before assembling them. Card is very light and it does not work well to expect glue to hold parts together that do not match where they connect. In this instance the circular turret walls were pre-formed around a small paint jar. The Russian monitors used different guns at various times (9-inch Krupp muzzle-loading smoothbore guns initially, then 15-inch Dahlgren muzzle-loading smoothbore guns produced under licence, and finally 9-inch M1867 breech-loading rifled guns), but I defy anyone to tell the difference when looking into the gunports of a 1:250-scale model, so I used the gun carriages and barrels provided to represent the 9-inch smoothbore guns mounted initially. (There is some confusion about the Dahlgrens but it appears that they really were Dahlgrens but cast using the Rodman system, so many writers refer to them as Rodmans.) I used a suitable drill shank as a mandrel and rolled the paper shape provided around it to make the barrels—each is a single piece. My technique for rolling such pieces is to start with a drill shank rather smaller than the final diameter and roll it across the paper while pressing down on a somewhat yielding surface—I usually use a finger tip! After quite a few successive passes the paper roll is close to the correct diameter. I transfer it to drill shank of the right size and start gluing. After I completed the guns, I painted over the visible white edges. I think it is important to finish the cut edges of the card parts to eliminate the white lines that otherwise would attract too much attention. I use watercolour brush tip pens or watercolour pencils that match the colour of the part. Some people become obsessed with trying to get an exact match but I find that just covering the white edges with a colour that is a close enough match satisfies me. Mörck’s kit provides an optional white conning tower, so I used that. To achieve the domed shape of the conning tower roof I cut tiny wedges out of the rim and pressed it into the palm of my hand using the end of an ink pen. I fixed it solidly by gluing a small piece of tissue paper inside the roof, using the pen top again to maintain the shape. The strange ‘antenna’ projecting from the conning tower’s roof is not present because I was attempting to make a model of one of R2D2’s friends--it is a periscope that several US Navy monitors used and seems to have been fitted on all the Russian monitors (some writers have suggested it is the ship’s binnacle, but other documentation indicates that this is incorrect). It is single inverted L-shaped piece wrapped around a very small drill bit as a mandrel. The turret top rim provided was black, so I simply installed it upside down to get a white rim. I temporarily removed the periscope because I knew I would break it if I left it sticking up. The turret top on the Russian monitors was surrounded with stowage for the crew’s hammocks but I have yet to devise an effective way to represent them (any suggestions will be much appreciated, and I hope I will come up with an answer before getting to the end of this project). Thank you all for looking. Maurice

Thank you all for taking an interest. The first stages of building a paper ship model usually are quite speedy. I am building this as a waterline model that I want to set in a sea base, meaning that I would like to depict at least a small amount of the underwater hull. This requires a deeper baseplate, which I created by laminating three layers of card. I like to use dry-mounting tissue (who remembers that stuff’s existence?) because it does not buckle paper stock and the laminated material is ready for use immediately. I first spot glued the baseplate to a piece of plate glass to make sure everything was flat (note the duct tape binding on the sides--I have enough very sharp tools for paper modelling lying around on my bench without having to run the risk of slitting my wrist (accidentally, of course!) on the edge of a piece of glass). After the hull structure is solidly integral, I can separate it from the glass using a wide flat craft knife blade. (Somehow, I have ended up building multiple monitors--you may note a couple of KuK Marine Donaumonitoren under construction in the background.) Then I dealt with a very common problem with paper models: the central spine is designed so that the tabs (and the spine, in this case) fold up but the scoring guide is set up for the tabs and so on to fold down. Rather than try to transfer the scoring guides, I simply used a needle point to mark the ends of the guide lines for the bulkheads to the reverse side and drew them in. After that I could cut out the spine elements and use them upside down knowing that I would be able to fit the bulkheads in position with accuracy. Mörck’s frame structure is quite interesting and unusual. He has the builder place on top of the base plate what is essentially a structure of two L-girders with the vertical webs joined back to back, thus creating a spine that is guaranteed to be upright and centred accurately. One then adds the transverse bulkheads (this is why I needed to transfer their positions as mentioned above. They are double thickness card. Most card ship models interlock the bulkheads and spine in the manner of an egg crate but this is not practical for this model because the hull is too shallow. The disc amidships is the support for the turret. Maurice

I suffer from a long-standing fascination with the sometimes bizarre vessels generated by the combination of steam power, armour protection, and iron construction. Over the years it has led me to build models of dozens of these often odd vessels. At the moment I seem to be drawn to monitors. USS Monitor, by any standards, was both enormously influential and very unusual for its time. Its impact on warship design at the time was significant, with navies all over the world seizing on its features, for better or worse. The ramifications of this intrigue me. One of the oddities of history is that almost the first non-United States producer of monitors was Imperial Russia. This was a consequence of the then far from cordial relations between Russia and Great Britain, in particular (how things have changed!). The Russian naval attaché to the United States at the time was impressed by USS Monitor’s performance at Hampton Roads and was able, perfectly legitimately and with the consent of the United States government, to obtain and transmit detailed drawings of the follow-on class of monitors developed for the US Navy. Russia promptly laid down ten clones of the Passaic class, the first of which was Uragan. I also have become (once again) very enthusiastic about paper modelling as a medium for creating replicas of iron or steel warships in particular. It is not always an easy medium with which to work but it also is amazingly flexible. My latest project is to build a model of Uragan. It is based on a very nice freely-downloadable 1:250-scale paper model of Lehigh, a Passaic class monitor, by the fine designer Magnus Mörck (who sadly died quite recently) from http://www.modelsnmoore.com/. Note that, though Models 'n Moore is based in the United States, the download is designed for printing on A4 paper. This download also offers the option of building a model of USS Catskill or USS Patapsco of the same class (this is significant for my project) and a very attractive little tug that I certainly will build in the imminent future. Here is what the download provides. There were some differences between the American and Russian warships when they entered service. The most significant, from a paper modeller’s perspective, was that it seems that the Russian ships initially wore ‘Victorian’ livery. My first problem, therefore, was to transition to this from a US Navy all-black colour scheme, quite easy for plastic/resin/wood builders using paint but much more complicated for paper modellers. I should mention that a professional computer geek ‘accidentally’ deleted Photoshop from my computer (using which would make changing colours straightforward) and Adobe offered to rectify the situation very quickly and easily…for several hundred euros! Mörck’s model has a black hull, but his inclusion of Catskill means he provides a white turret that would work with some tweaks. I needed a grey deck and a yellow funnel. Esselte AB might come to the rescue here (file folders)!

I love the truck but I think I need to keep my wife, who was born in Santa Fe, from seeing the photographs. She would be upset to find her home town has been relocated from New Mexico to Arizona. Maurice

When my father was on Victorious, one of his fellow Corsair pilots (an American marine engineering graduate from the Webb Institute) saw Nelson and calculated that she would plane if the designers had managed to add another 55,000 shp. The only problem was where to cram that much more machinery into her. Maurice

This is an amazing model! I speak as a just-retired museum curator (over 25 years working in maritime museums), an active consultant with maritime museums (including the Smithsonian), and a one-time professional ship model maker with more than 20 models in museums around the world. Maurice

Not long ago, I was asked to translate a Dutch author's book into English. For his own reasons, he wanted his son to coordinate with me, so the son emailed asking if we should communicate in Dutch or English. When I wrote back in Afrikaans, he responded with one word: English! Maurice

Actually, I think it's Flemish. Rather like people thinking I'm talking in Dutch when I speak Afrikaans (my native language). Maurice

Those flags are astonishing. Let me guess - your paying job is...fine-art restorer! Maurice

Please excuse my mangling of English (not my first language) but 'ugly is as ugly does'. No Furious, no Fleet Air Arm. This carrier's captains, crews, and aircrews accumulated more 'firsts' than any other, either in the Royal Navy or worldwide: first RN deck-landing under way, first independent carrier operation (in World War I attempting to run down German attackers on Norway convoys), first strategic strike against land targets (Trondheim), first night operations; the list goes on and on. Similarly, the maybe-ugly US carriers established the foundation for all subsequent US Navy carrier doctrine with Admiral Yarnall's devastating demonstration in the 1932 wargames. The 'ugly' Japanese carriers (especially Kaga, which always is overlooked in favour of its more glamorous (prettier) semi-sister Akagi) created and demonstrated the efficacy of independent carrier task forces (in 1931, no less) and the two of them amplified that in the pre-1941 years, so that the concept became central to Japanese doctrine. It has always baffled me that 'pretty' can be so important. Also, false senses of history and its significance. At the risk of starting a big war in the wrong forum, why was so much money wasted on refititing a worn-out Ark Royal when Eagle was a far better candidate in terms of its structural and mechanical state? It always seems to me it was from attachment to the ship's name rather than a rational analysis of the best option. Rant off! Maurice

You may not realise it but you are following a long-standing tradition. Some of the earliest surviving examples of flags on models of English warships were painted on very thin brass or copper. Maurice

He was 95 years old so he a long and productive life. Maurice

What is the boat in your avatar? I have a Flying Scot and a Thistle, both wooden from the 1950s. Some of my friends think I like the designs of Sandy Douglass too much! Maurice