Well its late and I'm tired, so I won't be writing too much tonight. We just finished troweling the concrete dome on the chook pen. It was quite a long day today. Here is a brief pictoral synopsis of the past week of the project: The first picture is of the completed wooden platform and formwork edges. Again, the front edge proved quite tricky as it curves in two planes.
We piled crushed gravel into a mound on the platform, shaping it to roughly the shape of the underside of the dome to be.
After the gravel was in place, we put a layer of brick sand over the whole thing, and feathered it out to the edges. It allowed us to shape the dome fairly accurately. We kept the sand wet and packed it tightly before covering it with black plastic sheeting.
.jpg)
After the plastic was on, we cut long strips of reinforcing mesh and wired them together in place, forming a steel basket of sorts. Once that was done, we were ready to pour the concrete...
.jpg)
And pour we did! And the clouds joined in too! We had scattered showers throughout the day. But just after we had placed the last bit of concrete, a thunderstorm rolled in. We had just barely gotten the dome covered with plastic when the skies opened up and let loose a torrent of rain and hail. All that water--along with the cooler temperatures--meant the concrete was pretty slow in setting, hence the working until 11:00 pm and me being tired. On that note... goodnight! I'll post some pictures of the finished dome next time..jpg)
We piled crushed gravel into a mound on the platform, shaping it to roughly the shape of the underside of the dome to be.
After the gravel was in place, we put a layer of brick sand over the whole thing, and feathered it out to the edges. It allowed us to shape the dome fairly accurately. We kept the sand wet and packed it tightly before covering it with black plastic sheeting..jpg)
After the plastic was on, we cut long strips of reinforcing mesh and wired them together in place, forming a steel basket of sorts. Once that was done, we were ready to pour the concrete....jpg)
And pour we did! And the clouds joined in too! We had scattered showers throughout the day. But just after we had placed the last bit of concrete, a thunderstorm rolled in. We had just barely gotten the dome covered with plastic when the skies opened up and let loose a torrent of rain and hail. All that water--along with the cooler temperatures--meant the concrete was pretty slow in setting, hence the working until 11:00 pm and me being tired. On that note... goodnight! I'll post some pictures of the finished dome next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment