Category Archives: Concrete Canoe

Concrete Canoe

It’s been a long day…

Quote

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.

Concrete Canoe

Canoe Pour Day 2013

Gallery

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.
Concrete Canoe

2013 Canoe Prep: Mold & Reinforcement

Gallery

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
Concrete Canoe

Endless hours of canoe-pour prep…

Aside

It actually takes more time to get the canoe ready for pour day than it does to pour it. Excluding the mix design (which obviously takes a lot of effort), preparing the mold is our biggest pre-pour task this year. Once we cut the rough shape from styrofoam blocks, we need to sand them into the more accurate shape, then glue most of the mold pieces together, tape the rest together, and do some final sanding.