aNtistic design

Step 3 Construction

Once my design was how I liked it I needed to get all my materials .I started with a standard sheet of 1/4 inch thick plywood .I then transferred rough measurements to it .leaving about one inch at the bottom and the edges for the width spacers (the wood that would determine how thick the tunneling area would be) .as well as leaving a slightly larger excess of wood on the sides for bracing .and last but not least extra wood at the top so the ants would have room to place the sand they excavated

Now that all of my reference lines have been marked it was time to cut .I didn't have on hand any purpose built saw horses but I did have some metal boxes that would do the trick .I made sure I wasn't going to cut into any material other then the ply wood .clamped my drywall square in place (taking the saw guide width into consideration) .then slowly and precisely made each of my cuts

once i had the plywood in much more manageable sizes .I continued marking were the 1x1 spacers would sit and were the trapezoidal piece would be cut out .then cut that out with a jig/scroll saw

The wood I used for the spacers was wood that lowe's culled and sold in bulk along with other slightly damaged wood .the 1x1s weren't so much damaged as warped .they were of no use in the 8 foot lengths they came in ,but in 1 to 10 inch sections they were just fine .once I had all of the shorter straighter sections of the boards ripped to the same thickness (they had each varied slightly in thickness) .I started laying them in place and marking where I needed to cut (and at what angle) .after cutting I glued the piece and then clamped it in place .then I would pre drill and counter sink each screw head to keep from cracking or splitting the wood

Now its time to make the inner form .I decided to make mine in one piece which turned out to maybe not be the best idea .though it worked .after I poured the metal ,the inner form became entrapped in it .and I had to cut the inner form to free the casting .it was a small price to pay for the end result but I intentionally built my forms for reuse .so I will have to make a new inner form section when I decide to make another table .but I digress .I assembled my outer form and carefully measured for my pieces ,as even a 1mm gap is enough for a fire ant to pass threw .once I had all of the plywood pieces cut I needed to reinforce the corners ,so I cut four pieces of scrap 2x2 .glued ,clamped ,pre drilled ,counter sank ,and then screwed the ply wood and bracing to one another .once the inner four pieces were fixed together I needed to make a top rail not only for added support of the plywood but also for an area to place a seal so the ants couldn't escape

All of the plywood that would be facing inward (toward the sand) received wood filler (the main reason for countersinking) so that when I poured the metal I wouldn't get any screw head impressions or knot holes in the casting .making sure only to fill the screw holes of the screws that would not need to be removed to release the casting