An ANT for My AUNT

My Aunt Laura has a Big Birthday coming up and she’s very tall. Juxtapose that with the fact that I always chuckled when people pronounced the word AUNT saying AWNT vs ANT. Really, like who are they trying to fool trying being all fancy and such.

Back to my Aunt Laura, we'll since she's tall and an aunt, I thought it would be funny (both haha and ironic) if I made her a tchotchke of an ANT celebrating its birthday. (Ironic, cuz she's big and the ANT is small - in case that wasn't obvious enough.)

Also, I learned about a cool Japanese woodworking technique call Ukibori. It's a process that involves making divots in wood to compress/crush the wood fibers Then you remove the wood above to make the divots disappear. Next the magic starts, just apply hot water or steam to the invisible divots which then causes them to expand and become raised bumps. So cool.

Now let's get to it.

(Bonus - Amazing fun ANT facts at the end.)

Wood of course. (I tried Oak and Maple -- Tip: Don't use Oak (set step 5)

Tools: Saw, Domed Punch, Hammer, Wood Burner, Heat Gun, and Lathe. (but you can pretty much do this with basic tools which will just take a bit longer)

Paint, Sand Paper

I cut my blanks in to 2.5" x 2.5" squares and mounted it on the lathe to make round and then sanded smooth.

I quickly sketched out a design on paper and then on the wood blank.

Now the fun part, pound away with the doomed punch. The deeper you make the divots, the bigger the bumps appear when water is added. That's Ukibori magic.

Now you have to do the best you can to remove the divots. If you don't, then your bumps with have little holes in the middle - but maybe you can use that to your advantage in your art.

Now the fun part, spray hot water on your piece and watch the bumps pop up -- it's magically.

TIP: Wetting the surface should be done soon after punching. The longer you wait, the less chance you have of succeeding

Lesson Learned: I should have figured this out but hard wood doesn't compress well so ergo little to no bumps. So go for the softer woods. (See the last pic.)

I used my daughter's nail polish to paint the ANTs and balloons then I wood burned in the arms and balloon strings.

Voilà - A little ANT for my Big Aunt.

So once I figured out the right wood to use, Ukibori was a really fun process.

If you al liked it, I might make a bowl or vase with dimples inside and out. My wood club members will go crazy trying to figure how I did it. (Shhh don't tell them.)

Now for some amazing ANT facts.

Worker ants can carry up to 50 times their body weight

Some ant colonies for super colonies that span over 3,500 miles

A colony of 40,000 ants has roughly the same number of brain cells as a human

A typical worker ant may nap about 250 times per day, each lasting around a minute

Male ants are born only to mate with a queen, then die.

A Queen Ant can live over 30 years.

Queen ants live significantly longer than other castes (like workers and soldiers) primarily due to a protein that suppresses the effects of insulin, allowing them to maintain high metabolism for egg-laying without the usual aging effects.

Did Ukibori enable me to stumble across the cure for longevity?

Another Instructable miracle!