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Tuesday April 1st 2003 01:10 PM PST

My first experiments with quikcrete (yup, its really just plastic concrete) have taught me a few lessons. The first trial run was a disaster. I built a mold out of a plywood base and a set of wood pieces. I C-clapped the pieces together so that i could pour the mixed concrete into the mold and then later remove the outside wood. Inside the center of the mold was a small wooden box that would create the void for the center. It was intended to produce a small concrete box or basin that i could then build a small fountain around.

My mistakes

I mixed the concrete like it was plaster. Usually plaster is very forgiving if you put too much water in it. Concrete is not. I could tell that the mixture was too thin, but i figured that i had to move fast before it set. Nope. It took a long time to set cause it was so thin, and it ended up being a little to brittle.

I also built the mold frame out of thin wood. It was only 1/4 inch on the sides and 1/2 for reinforcement. Well I built it to hold the concrete in. And it was plenty strong to do that. It was not built strong enough to withstand the pressure of the wood itself bowing. As the wet concrete sat in the mold, the wood soaked up all the extra water and ended up swelling and bending all over the place. More clamps on the outside pieces fixed that problem, but the inside box was out of my reach in the center of the concrete. That killed it all. It swelled as the concrete set and it cracked the entire project as it swelled.

So i got a bunch of broken pieces. Well it's not all a loss. I figured out a better mixing process and i know i need to build my next molds out of stronger wood, or just forget wood all together.

Yup its broken

But i did get some cool looking pieces

Here's the inside part of the mold that really did the damage. You can see how much it swelled.

Comments:

A.D.D. strikes again eh? You done with that website yet :-)

Posted by: Jason D-

Last year i was really pissed off at myself that i didn't do more shit like this. A.D.D. is a huge problem i have but stupid strategy games are even worse. About a month ago i trashed everything and stuck all the installation discs for all the games in a box and put it in the garage. So now it really comes down to the fact that i am happy that i got away from my computer yesterday. blogVOTE will be up hopefully by the end of the day if everything goes the way it has been for the last few hours.

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