Pouring the Piers

During the week I made up my 5 girder pairs to sit between the 6 piers to make my Cougal Spiral Bridge. I used an approximate 10mm square piece of balsa as a spacer to keep each of the pair of girders an equal distance apart. I did this to each of the 5 girder pairs and ended up with the basic girder shapes that I need before I add all the detail bits (the flanges and webs or whatever they are really called) to make these look like real bridge girders. I used aquadhere to bond the balsa to the styrene.

After my thinking last week about filling the piers with plaster to give them some bulk, I decided to go ahead with this concept but went one further. When the plaster was set, I then removed the styrene outer casing and ended up with the plaster piers by themselves for my Cougal Spiral Bridge.

On Saturday I cast 5 of the 6 piers in place. I started from the right and named them piers #1 through #6. It turned out that two were just a bit too short - #3 and #4. So I added a mix of very dry plaster manually to the top of pier #3, and used my spatula to blend it in to the existing shape. After drying I used my hobby knife to carve it off flat so the bridge girders could sit nice and square on the pier.

Sunday after tending to family commitments in the morning and early afternoon, I cast the 6th pier and set about adding a bit more height to pier #4. Pier #4 was extended the same as I did yesterday to pier #3 with a manual addition of a fairly dry plaster mix to the top of the pier and using the spatula to blend it in to the existing shape.

I still need to take the styrene formwork off pier #6.  I may do this later tonight.  After this I will flatten the top of the pier last few piers and fit the last three bridge girders to the piers.

I did try and take a few photos but the camera stopped working. The view screen bit the dust. That was $79 up in smoke! This camera was from Aldi and includes a recharger, two batteries and 2GB SD card in the price.  Better get the boss to go out and get another one this week.

Pier #6 on the far left still with styrene formwork encasing it and pier #2 on the right.

In this view you can just see the balsa between the girder pairs

Next week I think I will turn my attention to the bridge on the front track of the spiral.  At this stage I have no idea how I will build this.