If you made a video of this event I want to buy a copy!!!!!
--- In papercreters@yahoogroups.com, JUDITH WILLIAMS <williams_judith@...> wrote:
I had quite a day yesterday. I wanted to try my new idea of embedding
blocks in a slip form wall. Of course I got off to a bad start by
getting started too late. It was almost noon with the temp in the high
90s. I am a wimp in the heat, but I had a friend volunteer to put a new
fuel pump in my jeep and didn't want to appear to be abandoning him. So
I got out to my place at high noon and couldn't find the pump to
inflate the soccer ball in my mixer. Rigged up this thing I found in
the borrowed truck I had so was able to get to ball inflated. Am now
using cardboard in place of newspapers. Not sure how I like it. The
cardboard had been soaking for a week and was smelly with ugly water
all around. Couldn't find my rubber gloves so had to just dig in and
get my hands dirty. Mixed it up and it came out OK, except for the
plastic that gets all wound around the blade. But then I had to rig up
a scaffold because the wall is way higher than I can reach. So I got
the ladder for one end and a combination of papercrete blocks and 2 saw
horses stacked up for the other end, and 2 roughsawn 2 x 4s for the
plank. A chair to get up to the plank. 5 gallon buckets filled with
slurry transported into the building over a little bridge/ramp thing,
then hefting them onto the plank, climbing up and down, trying to lift
the buckets so as not to disturb the form which was tentatively held on
one end with a screw in the rotten part of the upright post. Screw came
out, got put back in, broke off and held the form about 1" out from
where it should have been. Eventually got all the forms moved up and in
place, laid the blocks in between and poured slurry all around. Not
bad. Waited a half hour or so, moved the forms up again (no small feat
for a person working alone), set more blocks and started to pour again.
Then I noticed that the previous pour was coming apart, detaching
itself from the embedded block and falling off. So I quickly got the
cordless drill again to move the form back down. Dead battery so I had
to keep changing bits (some screws are phillips and some are torque, my
favorite. I have a drill for each). Finally got the forms back down but
the wall was ruined so I had to scoop out what was in there and put in
new. Took all the buckets of slurry down from the planks, back into the
wheelbarrow, back into the mixer with more water, drove around the
block again but the mixer wasn't full enough for the blade to be
effective so the slurry stayed dry on the bottom and wet on the top.Had
to hand scoop the slurry into the block forms. Also had to detach the
mixer from the truck so I could move it myself over the forms since I
had no one to guide me. Got the forms filled. I stripped down and had a
cold hose shower, opened a beer and was sitting in my chair half
catatonic and naked when someone drove in the driveway, a person I'm
not very fond of with his new lady friend. Ran into my shed real quick
and got presentable. Showed them the papercrete project and treid to sound enthusiastic. They finally left. Wanted to spend the night out there (lots of
tension here at home between housemates) but my inflatable mattress had
a leak and the wind came up and it started to rain. So I came home, had
a good bath, confronted the housemate on problems, went to bed and had
a great sleep. But I'm beat today and have just enough energy to type
this little tirade.
Sincerely,
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