[Ferro List] more fantastic fc

[paul at ferrocement.net]

Hi Chris,

Yes, this is from the book by Peter Harris, Fantastic Ferrocement.

For someone with little to no experience this a nice book is a nice
starting point. Peter keeps things simple as he writes from his personal
experience.

Paul

> 20 page pdf article by peter harris,
> cannot remember if this is the same chap that wrote the book paul posted a
> bit ago
>
> article ismore of the same, more of a diary than technical
>
> chris
> tecumseh, OK
>
>
>
>
>
> Esoteric ferrocement
> The symbolism of ferrocement is interesting. The
> uncrushable but brittle married to the bendable but
> unbreakable. A marriage of opposites. I had these
> impressions as we built Dreamspace: the wire framework is
> like the bones of the body; the chicken wire the muscle
> layers, and the plaster is the skin. Or, the wire framework
> which is woven together is like a spider’s web, beautiful in its
> own right, ethereal, the wind whistling through it, but strong
> and supportive. Then there is a transformation, and that
> beauty is lost, but another is born: the beauty of the solid
> enclosing form. Then even that is transformed when it is
> carved and painted, losing its starkly beautiful bone-like look
> and gaining whatever colours our aesthetic sense dictates.
> Esoteric, frustrating ferrocement
> And the journey of building in ferrocement is a good exercise
> for would-be creators. It is a discipline of actually grounding
> a pure perfect beautiful heavenly idea in those two very
> stubborn and earthly materials, steel and concrete, hard and
> heavy, recalcitrant and messy. Sometimes as Anna and I
> laboured on the domes and arches of Dreamspace the steel
> got very rusty and poky and springy, and the concrete got
> very wet and cold, messy and abrasive, getting into all the
> cuts the steel had made, ruining clothes, and dropping off
> the mesh or sliding off trowels into gumboots, splattering
> tools and ladders with mud that turned surprisingly quickly to
> stuck-on stone. And just when we thought we were finished,
> we found we weren’t; there was always another area to do or
> another coat to put on. Then the daylight always seemed to
> run out and we’d be cleaning up in the dark.
> The need to keep the plastered areas wet for seven days was
> another trial of patience. Our lovely work hidden, covered in
>
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