Pour, Take 2.

This past Thursday we attempted our second try at pouring our concrete canoe. The first one was a fair practice run, but ended up in casting failure. When we removed the male plug from the 2 day strong concrete, we found the concrete had made it's way past the polyurethane coats. It bonded with the plaster and took up some of the fiberglass cloth that held the original balsa wood backbone of the mold together. Having planned to make more than 1 boat, we quickly made the executive decision of laying an extremely smooth membrane in the female, and wrapping the male with a lightweight plastic. The membrane had worked for teams in the past using a hand placing method, and the lightweight plastic had worked in our male mold test earlier in the year. It was no easy task laying the membrane in, we began to feel like rubber tailors. However, the possibility of an extremely smooth boat right out of the mold outweighs the risk of seems. For those who want to know more about the membrane laying process, leave a comment. I will not give away too many secrets unless I know you're playing for Drexel.

After upgrading our molds, we mixed up our proven best concrete mix and went at it again.

Here's the female mold, black with the membrane, some steel mesh (magically) suspended on the sides, plywood rib cage, and 4 alignment poles.


Here's the wrap of the male mold looking quite nice, notice the folds strictly at the end.

Here's an example of the alignment pole, the pole itself for X & Y control, the wood block there for Z control.

Here's the steel mesh we used as our primary reinforcement. Last year's epic cracking led to our creative ways of smuggling reinforcement.

Here's Mo alongside all our buckets set up for half cubic foot mixes.

The male mold eagerly waits alongside the old champs,
Pat working the drill while Chris steadies the bucket and Marie adds our cementitious material blend.

Coming along nicely.

Myself working the drill with Alisha adding silica fume, Mo handling the water, and Megan learning the way.

I used to have nice boots.

In go some fibers...

After we made enough, we poured em all in and spread it out.

In comes the male mold...
Onto the poles...


Adding the weight to the push in the male,
The steel plates are around 80lbs, the buckets 40-70lbs.

The front tip,
The back tip,
Pour complete!

We'll be taking out the male plug Saturday at Noon. It will surely be an exciting afternoon.

Greg