Channel: Anthill Art

Category: Science & Technology

Tags: ant hill artant hill castinganthill artaluminum anthillant colony castingpouring aluminumants ant colony

Description: This is an older fire ant colony casting video that was never posted. More colony casting videos were planned for late last year but the weather would not cooperate when I had time. I'll definitely be doing colony casts this year plus a few more ideas I've been working on. Captions were added to the video to answer two common questions: 1) Why does the hill look like you just piled up dirt? There is a layer of dirt placed on and around the hill to stabilize it and plug any holes. It doesn't happen often but occasionally aluminum will burst through the hill or come out of a foraging tunnel near the hill. 2) Why does the aluminum look like it's not moving? The air cools the outer layer of the aluminum, forming a film. The aluminum is still flowing beneath the film. About 19.3 lb of aluminum went into this fire ant hill and the finished cast is about 12" in height. More info/pics here: anthillart.com/castings/070 00:00 Aluminum Pour 00:41 Digging 01:31 Removing the cast 01:53 Cleaned Cast