Picture of Stellated Snowdecahedra
Snow sculpting is an ancient and honored art, humbly beginning ~16,000 years ago outside the caves of Lascaux, France.  Inside the caves they had fine pigments, powders, brushes, extravagant meals, and fire.   But outside the caves?  Just snow.  

In this Instructable you'll learn to make a beautiful geometric form, the small stellated dodecahedron, out of snow.  Since we don't have to tell YOU that kanevvluk (Eskimo for "fine snow/rain particles") is the supreme material, grab some mittenfulls of the wet white stuff and let's get crackin.  

Well, first we need to make a hollow 5-part mold out of steel, so grab your welding mittens and let's get crackin!
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Step 1: Stellated Snowdecahedra - the pieces

Picture of Stellated Snowdecahedra - the pieces
There's a whole internet of geometric info on the stellated dodecahedron.  For now, you need to know that it's made of identical triangles which have a height : base ratio of 1.54 : 1.  For this particular mold, my triangles are about 3-5/16" on the base, 5-3/32" in height.  Like people, they don't have to be perfect.

Cut yourself a pattern, tessellate them out on a strip of steel, and slice them up with your method of choice.  I used the hydraulic shear at my friendly neighborhood makerspace, but jump shear and plasma cutter are fine alternatives. 

In total you'll need 50 triangles, but having extra is always nice.  For this size mold that comes to about 3 sq ft of steel, and I chose a healthy-looking crop of 16-gauge.  

Step 2: Stellated Snowdecahedra - welding the cones

Picture of Stellated Snowdecahedra - welding the cones
Once you've got your triangles cut and ground to remove burrs, tape their edges together and origami that puppy up into a pentagonal cone.  Tack-weld the cone into shape, wearing proper protective gear of course.  

Lather rinse repeat until you've got 5 such cones.  Feel free to weld up the seams for strength and total enclosure, MIGging your way to glory.

Step 3: Stellated Snowdecahedra - the face

Picture of Stellated Snowdecahedra - the face
Take your pentagonal cones and weld more triangles to the top edge and bottom two edges, so you end up with an oversized, dangerous-looking Star Trek comm badge.  Like, if it was a Klingon rather than Federation design.  
786Ayesha1 year ago

Wow..Great work..

hunter9991 year ago

Thats epic! Excellent job!

bagnitsch1 year ago

Epic stuff. In the warmer months you can use the mold as a work of art.