Steel, steel, and more steel

Hello hello,


In order to make these concrete biosand filters I've been talking about, you need a steel mold to pour the concrete into (just like pouring jello into a jello mold, except this mold is a big hunk of steel about 4 feet tall...pictures in previous post). The more molds you have, the more filters you can produce...plus a lot of organizations purchase molds from CWH, so they're always making molds.

This morning, I learned how to cut steel with a plasma cutter so that the pieces could be assembled into a mold. They take a big sheet of steel, then cut all the mold pieces out of it like a cookie cutter, except you want to do it so that there is hardly any waste, because steel is significantly more expensive than leftover cookie dough :) (plus we don't have the capability of balling up the leftovers and rolling it out to make more steel sheets).


But, instead of cutting steel all day, I shifted gears and hopped on the computer to use AutoCAD (drafting software) and figure out a way to minimize waste and the number of cuts made on each sheet. There are quite a few molds to be made, so I figured this would be a better use of my time...and it will save the mission some money :).

It's been years since I've used AutoCAD...I love this program :).

That's all for now. I'm going to see if I can go for a swim before dinner is ready.

First full day

Up at ten to six this morning, rolled out of bed, and I'm at the beach, and Haiti...sweet deal. Work day starts at 6AM here so all of the Haitian hired labor is here just before 6. Getting up so early is not a big deal at all, and I actually like it. We go to bed early (9:30PM), and I've always liked going to bed early and getting up early, so I'm liking the schedule.
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The view from the back patio :).

I got a little tour of the mission here, met some of the workers and then Leslie made some delicious banana pancakes for breakfast :) (there are banana trees on the property). Afterward I headed off to start working on demolding some of the filters poured yesterday, taking the molds apart, greasing them up, reassembling, and then made new ones. That's the main thing I did over the course of the day, but I also had lunch and ran with Matt to the hardware store to load up 3 pieces of rebar and 66 bags of concrete.

Chris made us fresh papaya smoothies :).

Leslie made us fresh bagels with her bread maker :).

Matt is in yellow, and the other guys are painting filters and making new ones.

Me (the white one), vibrating the concrete in the mold using a rubber mallet.

The workday ends at 2:30PM, so from then until dinner I'm pretty much free to do what I please. I hung out for a bit on the back patio and rehydrated (it's quite hot here), and then Matt and I went for a swim. The water was extremely warm with a few cool spots, so it was still refreshing. I may even start swimming after work for some exercise :).

We had dinner and then watched an episode of MI5, which Chris described as a British version of the American show "24". No, we don't have a TV, which I'm happy about, but Chris is able to download movies off the internet, and we can all sit and watch them on Leslie's laptop for movie nights. Oh, I forgot to mention, there is a time difference between Haiti and Eastern Standard Time....well, only half of the year anyway. They don't do Daylight Savings Time, so while we flip back and forth in the US, they just stay the same all the time. So, right now, we're one hour earlier than E.S.T.

It's way passed my bedtime, so I'll leave you this one last picture which I thought was quite pretty.

The view from the back porch just before dinner.