An aluminum snowman is made using a snowman shaped piece of styrofoam. The styrofoam is packed in casting sand (Petrobond) to create a mold. When poured into the mold, the molten aluminum vaporizes the styrofoam and fills the mold. This is known as lost foam casting. Holes are then drilled and tapped to attach common hardware such as screws and bolts to make the features. It’s a little weird, I know, but I wanted to do something with sand and lost foam casting, so this is what I came up with.

I’ll make some more ant colony casting videos soon.