A "continuous pour" is the best way to create a section of concrete with
minimal cracking from expansion and contraction. It is just that ...
continuous ... each truckload of cement is put in place against the previous
section which has not begun to set up. It's a bit tricky to program and
schedule. Freeway sections are put in place with the continuous pour technique
but they are commonly less than 1/4 mile in length because of the need of a
finished road bed before the pour starts. For construction of a variety of
structures it is a common procedure. They used it in a local hospital building
and the Tolboe Construction company received awards for the finished product
from national trade publications. Wish they'd done half as good a job on my
driveway.
Seth Hammond's rigging is the kind commonly used in vertical structures where
the forms and the cranes used to move them are moved up the structure as it is
created.
A "dry mix" is used for smaller pre-cast items like sewer pipe where the forms
are removed before the cement itself is dry. It's tamped into place but the
mix put in the form is just shovelled in and has far less water than the type
of mix that we think of like what comes in cement trucks. That is a good
technique if you have forms that are easy to remove. My grandfather made
thousands of sections of pipe that way. It requires a good tamping technique
but the moisture content of the finished section is consistent throughout and
the object doesn't require the amount of re-bar that the more fluid pours do.
We could do several pipe in an evening just moving the forms after each pipe
was fully formed. Wish I had access to those "workhouses" today. They had a
rail down the ridge of the building and a block and tackle you could move along
the rail to lift forms. Would have made removing an engine a snap.
Wes
> In a message dated 02/13/2005 7:17:36 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> wester6935@comcast.net writes:
>
> While we're on this subject, what exactly is "continuous pour"?
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