Have you ever wondered how they made these strange concrete buildings or curves or triangular shapes? This is not a secret, and your imagination is the only limiting factor. Money, of course, helps in the acquisition of materials, but in many cases, used lumber or plywood will work fine. Be creative. A cardboard tube from inside a carpet roll, when cut in half, makes an excellent airlock or slide form for a fountain or stream. The wooden drums left over from the electric roll form a large inner circle shape for a donut-shaped shape. Everything is free for inquiry. There are also special materials, such as a product called a manicure board, which can be bent to achieve pleasant smooth curves to the edges of the finished concrete. Walk through your local store of large crates with the thought of finding things you can use to form concrete. You will be amazed at what you find. Empty buckets laid sideways in the form of a wall make ideal holes for holes or round windows. You can find a square, round, triangular or almost any shape. You can always create your own forms. Let's see how to form a curved wall.
Starting with the plate on the floor to create the shape of the wall you want, this is your first step. Of course, you cannot bend two or four, so you use a large piece of lumber and trim the form (or part of it). If the curve fits into two to six, lay out the curve and cut it with a saber saw. If the curve is longer than your board or larger than what can fit two to six, use two to eight, and so on. After all the pieces of the floor are cut, make a duplicate that will become the top plate of your shape. Put the pieces in place and attach them to the feet or the floor. Now the curved wall is much easier to build. Using standard two-by-four lumber, place them as close as possible to each other along the floor slab to create a curved wall. Install the top plate. Using Luann plywood one inch thick, and starting at one end of your form, attach the plywood to the studs, and then gently bend the plywood around the wall. You might want to coat the plywood with the oil of the mold before it is installed, and although it makes the installation a little dirty, it softens the plywood and makes it even easier to bend. Secure the plywood every two to four. It adds strength to your form of work and keeps plywood in place when it dries. Once the face shape is complete, you can finish the back of the mold and pour out the concrete. Odd shapes can be embedded in the face of the mold to provide indentations in the concrete or holes in the wall, etc.
Free-form concrete can be very interesting, but it requires a concrete pump that can shoot a concrete product called gunite or shotcrete. Any form is possible and limited only by the force of gravity. Armature, foam form and other objects can be used as temporary forms for concrete until it hardens. Indoor swimming pools are often made of rhinite, and this is how they get those large curved sections and shapes. It is required that the crew use a cannon pump, but as soon as the basics have been studied with sufficient assistance, you can also use it.
Concrete, when suspended in air, requires a certain type of reinforcement to support the weight of concrete. For example, if you are trying to make suspended stairs, ask an engineer to develop reinforcement models for you. Concrete is very heavy and can cause a serous injury or worse if collapse occurs.
Try to form some small architectural elements in your garden and pour them out using a red bag sack mix. Steps, small walls, a pool or a pond, then move on to wider functions. You will be amazed at how easy it is to make these great features.
Pete Eckerson
Your friendly building inspector
http://www.Wagsys.com
Software BICES-Building Inspection & Code Enforcement
