It. Is. Done.

8pm, and I’m done. So’s the wall…

I was sorely (pun intended) tempted to leave the formwork in place, pack up and go home when I finished ramming at about 7, but I figured that while I have Craig’s cordless drill I ought to make the most of it and strip the forms off tonight.

Ta da!

Another one down, and I’m really pretty happy with the result. There is a little tear out where I’ve removed the bolts, but this seems to be totally unavoidable since every single one has done it regardless of how careful I am removing the bolts.

There has been a little bit of sticking-to-the-forms going on, even though I wiped them down with clean engine oil before I started. It seems that when the mix is a little bit wet,  it sticks to the forms. I managed to keep today’s mixes reasonably dry so there’s less damage than there has been on the previous panels, but I have a small amount of patching work to do.

I’m so glad I decided to rebuild the end column - it has produced a fantastic, almost completely perfect result. I couldn’t be happier with it.

I’m also coming around to the tiger stripes - I’d prefer the walls without them, but they mark these walls as mine!

One thing I’m going to have to look at with this wall is the final height - I’m slightly over in the middle of the wall, but pretty close at the ends. At 7pm in the dark and the cold after 12 hours of ramming all I want to do is be finished, so my attention to detail wanes a little. Have grinder, will fix… another day.