: Hi Shawn,

: Just when you get to crusing sometimes is how "they" get you !!! I
: am full of "ideas" and never know which one is going to end up
: biting me in the butt if I "go for it". Glad you got hungry for
: a snack. Kinda reminds me of the time when i was helping a friend by
: making some concrete forms for some piers on a hillside foundation. I was
: thinking it was just a small job and screwed the ply together with 1
: 1/4" screws .... Anyway I was all "ready" to pour and had
: the laborer keep dumping in the concrete...... All I can say it was a good
: thing I was standing there with my screwgun and had some 3" screws
: because those forms no sooner got just about filled to the top when the
: sides started ... You guessed it .... To split apart right before my eyes
: (1 1/4" screws through 1/2" ply didn't give much bite under all
: the pressure!!! If I had not been there to screw it back togehter
: Literally as the concrete was splitting the forms apart ... I can't even
: think of that concrete as a flowing MESS all over that hillside not to
: mention my Err.... "reputation" ha, ha. Good Save !!

You were lucky with the screws--

I used to work in the precast industry, and one of our guys built a set of wood forms with 2" and 2 1/2" screws. When we started pouring (it was a big column--cast horizontally, but 3'deep x 3' tall x 15' long, and the pressure was too great on the screws at the bottom. When we hit the mud with a vibrator, all those screws snapped, and we had 5 yards of mud all over the production floor!!

shawn