As a part of our continual growth here at Heavy, we have been investing significant resources into the research and development of the concrete side of our business. For quite some time now, we have been creating excellent CNC and artist created positives and molds for concrete contractors. Furthermore, we are proud to say that our in-house capabilities include precast concrete, GFRC and GFRG. While the above products and services may seem fairly standard for any of the top tier custom concrete contractors, we are pleased to announce a new concrete process that we now offer that can save money while giving designers greater creative authority. We won’t pretend that this process was achieved without any hiccups, but through an extremely close working relationship with our suppliers and our customer – Flat Iron Construction Corp. – we are confident that we have developed a process that can aid design professionals everywhere.
Some folks from Flat Iron approach Heavy last spring with an interesting project that they needed some help with. They had the design shown below and needed it enlarged and turned into a pattern that could be placed inside of their concrete forms while they were pouring the piers of a Northern Alberta bridge. Typically, these formliners are created by hand out of plywood, however the problem with wood formliners is that the surface of the wood is porous and it therefore absorbs the concrete as it cures. When the concrete has cured and the wood needs to be removed, it is extremely difficult to do so because the porous wood is impregnated into the surface of the concrete – when the wood is pulled off it is completely destroyed and generally sandblasting is required to clean up the surface texture. As a result, for typical construction projects, additional wood and additional labour is required to create brand new formliners for every concrete pour. This is not an eco-friendly or a cost effective way of forming concrete.
Through our project discovery phase with Flat Iron, both parties decided immediately that the traditional way of making formliners was not something that we wanted to support; so instead we began researching and developing a new solution. Through our research, we discovered that there was a combination of mold release gel and hardcoat that we could utilize to make a formliner that wouldn’t absorb the concrete as it cured. Furthermore, we discovered that, since the formliners would be made from a solid EPS substrate by CNC milling equipment utilizing 3 dimensions (instead of the two that are afforded by wooden formliners), we could actually give designers greater creative control. Instead of having to deal with straight planes created by stacking layers of wood, designers can now create dynamic curves with rolling hills and valleys in the Z dimension. In a nut shell, designers everywhere can now design concrete to look more dynamic all the while they can save money by utilizing our reusable formliners. Here is a closer look at the process that we utilized to execute this project.
We began by uploading the pattern to our computers and modeling the pattern with our 3D modeling software. With the digital model created, our industrial designers then planned the sheet size and layout that would allow us to efficiently produce the pattern to line the forms. The sheets were designed so that each individual sheet would be backed with inset plywood that Flat Iron could bolt directly to the inside of the form. This allowed them to be completely confident that the pattern wouldn’t shift as the concrete was poured.
Once all of the design work was completed and approved, our designers passed the digital models off to our milling technicians to program our CNC milling equipment. The CNC milling equipment milled the pattern of each sheet out of EPS foam.
As the pieces came off of the mill, our extremely talented sculptors and bodyworkers prepared each sheet for hardcoat by sealing and sanding all of the “bug holes” and bodyworking any ridges that were left in the EPS by the milling equipment.
Much of the formliner pattern could lay flat, however the most interesting part of the design was where the design curved around the edge of the pier. As a template for ensuring that our pattern was correct, we built a form with the exact dimensions of the concrete form for laying out and assembling the edge pattern pieces. The pieces were laid into the form in slices, glued together and then bodyworked as a single unit for cohesiveness.
When all of the pieces were correctly assembled and finished by hand, it was time to hardcoat the pieces with the special formula that we developed with our suppliers. Great care was taken to control the volume of hardcoat sprayed so that we would have a uniform surface texture and so we would not radius over the clean edges or compromise the draft angles.
Here you can see the finished panels clearly labeled and laid out waiting for delivery to Fort McMurray.
Here you can see the edge pattern installed into the formliner. This is after a couple of pours have been cured and completed.
Here is a picture the finished pier. It is difficult to see exactly how the pattern looks as it is so far away – however the streetlights on the top left should give you some sense of scale. If you have any questions about this process or if you would like additional information on this process, please call 403.252.6603 or email theskinny@heavyworld.com
Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!
Great, I never knew this, thanks.