Day 34: Filling the first set of columns

They started filling in the columns. But since everything is boarded up, you can't see anything. Tomorrow, I'll ask if i can climb up to take pics.

The small cement mixer is what they've been using for mixing the mortar for the bricks. The gigantic blue and green coloured truck is the cement mixer for the cloumns. Although the truck looks like it carries a lot, Luis says the truck carries about 8 m2 of cement. He says carrying more cement in the truck is pointless. If the cement is rolling around for more than an hour, it loses it's cohesion. (I hope I'm using the right word) the quality of the cement is not so good. It's like a fresh batch of playdough versus playdough that's 1 month old.

This truck is the portable crane that moves the concrete from the circus coloured truck to the columns to be dropped. The cement was poured in from this crane.

These are the guys pouring in the concrete into the columns.

The little green carrier has a lever (Gusman's hand is on it) and when you push it down, the concrete falls out of the bottom. I've included a video at the bottom.

Watch the guys in action. You can hear Luis's voice in the background talking to Gusman...

After the cement is dumped in, Esteban immediately uses a vibrator to get rid of all the air in the cement. Here's a clip. (He does it really quickly, is that enough?)

Then he smooths out the top (like frosting a cake...a lot of building is like baking)

So that's today's work. They finished early today and will let the concrete settle. Luis says it only takes 3 hrs for the concrete to harden. But to be sure, they will leave it for 24 hrs to dry. The sun was very hot today, I hope that helps things. Tomorrow they will take off the molds and use them for the left over columns that are not yet put in. The cement truck and crane are scheduled to come back in 2 days after the rest of the columns are all boarded up.

Luis says they are 1 week ahead of schedule! I think it's because they're happy workers... That's just my opinion...(and of course they are very experienced). :)