Keeping character, or restoring a pond

[wroughtn_harv]

I'm used to people feeling sorry for me because I'm old and don't get around real well. I've had helpers sneak up close when carrying a beam with me so that I don't get my fair share of the weight etc.

But today these guys pulled a fast one on me. It wasn't until we were well into it that I got it.

The way it's supposed to work is two men lay block, a block layer and a tender. Two men grade and finish the pour on the beam. And one man feeds the mixer with me helping him between delivering the concrete to the finishers.

Instead they had the tender help the mixer guy and there was nothing for me to do but shuttle concrete and materials as required.

It took me awhile to figure out why once I got what they were doing. I think it was because at lunch I only ate half of a sandwich instead of my usual whole. I suspect they saw that as a sign I wasn't feeling well and realigned the work load to accomodate me.

 

[Inspector507]

The longer they are around you, the more they'll think like you. And that ain't a bad thing to leave a good worker with, your kind of thinking.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

You're way too kind Jerry. But I do know I'm a richer and better person for working with these men on this job. And I hope down the road when they think of me they'll smile just like I will when I think of them.

I didn't post any pictures last night. We'd had a good day but to be honest I felt a little guilty. I'm hogging a ton of bandwidth on TBN with this project.

Yesterday we hung the rocks on the north side terrace or patio.

As you can see we decided to add a couple (four) cup holders. The best way to this was to build them into the wall.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Just in case you didn't notice, we got us a wall flower.

One of the guys was watching me make the cup holders. When I got done he pointed to a layout of stones on the grass and asked me what I thought.

I thought it was great.

Every wall with built in cup holders deserves a flower, right?

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The funny thing about that darn wall flower is until it's pointed out you don't notice it. After that it's your focal point.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Yesterday we also got the planter wall done on the east side.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Today we not only got the north side patio-terrace wall pattern filled in with concrete. We also used up almost all the coping material on hand.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

As you can see, the coping makes a ton of difference in the appearance.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The way I made the cupholders is I used rebar pins and epoxy.

The epoxy I get at a granite counter top supply. It comes similar to body putty with a large can of goo and a tube of hardener. It's really quite reasonable price wise unless you're only doing one connection.

I used two dowels into the brace or bottom stone to the flat one on top. Then I used my regular pins we're using for the rest of the rocks to mount them to the wall. One pin in the base or bottom rock and one into the thin edge of the flat top stone.

Drilling the hole in the thin edge takes a little technique. I'm using a Hilti TE15C which is a wonderful hammer drill. It'll let me slow down to where we can count the revolutions and tap our feet to the rythm of the hammering. That allows us to drill our hole with no breakout or fracture.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Maybe this shows them a little better.