Monday, September 1, 2008

Capital

That's an interesting look, Kim. Cowboy Darth?
He tackled a very tricky project to create the finishing touches for the front of our house. Had to do something to stop everyone from asking "what are those two tall box-things in the front?"


Those pink things on top of 'the tall box-things' are styrofoam prototypes for the caps on these columns.
The style we went with is the one hidden behind the tree.

The first finished (or so he thought) mold.
After the concrete expert came & took a look both molds had to undergo substantial re-inforcement. That concrete is pretty heavy, especially when it's wet.
Many hours of work went into designing and building the molds. It's a good thing Kim's labour is free or these capitals would have cost us a fortune.

We're very fortunate to find out that one of the best concrete experts in the province lives just 1/2 a mile from our house and was willing to cast the caps for us. Turns out it isn't something we could have done ourselves, they're so heavy that special equipment was needed to handle them and we don't happen to have a crane or vibration table, or a cement mixer for that matter. This is part of Casper's workshop.

The 'unmolding' was an exciting evening.
Once the concrete had hardened the filled mold had to be turned over.

It took three people and a crane.


Then they went at it, unscrewing the 5 bzillion screws.

Carefully, one piece taken off at a time, like a long, boring strip-tease.

The first reveal. Looks good.



And here they are, unmolded.

The pokey things sticking out are for attaching metal eyes to so they can be picked up and put in place by crane.


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