Yeah, cardboard’s not sandable…
– Erin Khan, Canoe Captain
Monthly Archives: March 2013
Making Bulkheads… And a Mess…
Trying to de-mold bulkheads…
Canoe Update
Our canoe is curing well (had to rethink our humidifying tent concept). Also starting work on the bulkheads tonight…
Environmental Team Update
The environmental design team is creating a municipal sewer system. (See full competition guidelines here). Tonight, they made some replica sewage and tested out the mock-up of their design. Unfortunately, we can’t post pictures of the design, but here are some of the team making test sewage:
It’s been a long day…
The male mold is protecting the female mold, which has our baby in it.
~ Erin Khan, Concrete Canoe Co-Captain, summarizing our tactic of using the spare foam pieces that were cut out of the mold (the male mold) to shelter/hide the female mold, which has the canoe we just poured in it, from passers-by while it cures.
Canoe Pour Day 2013
Photos by Nick Halsey, Erin Khan, and Lance Hill. Click on an image to see it full size and scroll through them.
Trimming the reinforcement in the mold 
Attempting to assemble the (male) mold cutouts… 
The 2nd layer of reinforcement standing by on the male mold 
Last-minute mold-cleaning 
Dry concrete is awaits mixing 
The madness is about to begin… 
Frantic concrete mixing 
Deliberating over bow design 
Packing the first layer 
Adding the first section of reinforcement 
packing the second layer, over reinforcement 
Thinking break… 
The canoe team places concrete into the canoe mold during the concrete canoe pour day, 2013 
Ordering food! 
Starting to place concrete over the second layer of reinforcement 
We used some spare bricks to hold the reinforcement in place while we mixed more concrete. 
Brief break, waiting for more concrete to lay over the 2nd layer of reinforcement. 
Waiting for more concrete for the last layer 
Packing in the last layer. 
The canoe is poured! 
Now we prep the concrete canoe for curing, a 4-week process in total. 
We needed the whole team to construct the canoe’s plastic shell 
The canoe will cure in this sealed, humidified shell for the next week.
2013 Canoe Prep: Mold & Reinforcement
Finishing up the mold and preparing the reinforcement the night before pour day:
The mold after the second stage of sanding. 
We eventually realized that the mold glue bonded best vertically. 
Waiting for glue to dry so we can tape the bigger mold chunks together… the cinder blocks help apply pressure to bond the mold 
Arranging the mold into pour-position 
The positioned canoe mold is taped together 
We needed to do some final sanding to account for the adjustments from the mold block positioning changes after gluing 
Laying out reinforcement 
We went with two layers of reinforcement, three layers of concrete this time 
One layer is positioned the long way in two big overlayed strips, the other in seven smaller strips across