Ron,
Thanks for the detailed suggestions.
>>One thing that will cause the time to dry increase is putting a layer of plastic under them<<
Yeah, I'm starting to figure out that one on my own. The one area in my back yard that's flat enough to pour blocks is my kid's play area, which has been terraced. But when it rains, water tends to flow across it so I put the tarps down thinking it would help keep the undersides from getting wet if it rained (of course the tops would be covered when rain threatened.) But what turned out was that a bunch of little ponds formed on the tarps when I filled the molds and now they're still too wet for me to move enough to remove the underlying tarp.
I thought of pressing them, but as you noticed, my current molds are too thin. Not shown is a piece of wood with right angles attached which I can lay over the molds to prevent bowing, but those too are probably too lite to contain the bowing from compression. I think I need to use 2" boards rather than 1/2" plywood in my next molds.
A friend of mine who's a whiz with humidity suggested I construct mini-greenhouses over my molds. This would raise the temperatures and dewpoints, drawing the moisture out of the paper and onto the overlaying plastic sheeting. The water would then condense on the plastic and roll down the sides and away from the molds.
>>slip forms would be much better<<
I'll keep that in mind for version #2 of my project. Right now I'm building a prototype device and the dimensions may change, so stacked blocks are a lot more flexible.
Could you send me a link to your slip forming info?
Thanks
Dan
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