cracking open the shell

Today was another exciting day. We removed the top form as well as one of the side forms. They came off a lot easier than we thought. It was a huge relief, because we had been worrying about this stage. This is the first dome of this shape and size that Don has used his new tracing method on and we weren’t completely sure that the stucco wouldn’t cement the outer form to the traced structure underneath. If that had happened, we would have had to leave them stuck to each other and it would have also meant that that the reusable form would be embedded into the structure forever. Furthermore, the days and days of tracing that we did would have been redundant. But that was all needless worry. The reusable forms broke free rather easily.

What was left standing underneath the cracked shell was a new self supporting structure of it’s own.

Today, we also finished coating one of the window wells. Don warned us not to go any further until we do a brown coat. The brown coat is a second skin of stucco on the inside of the dome. This will make it more stout before removing the rest of the forms.

The dome is no longer translucent. It is now a structure that blocks the sun and wind… two of the biggest hurdles out here.