Well it's been awhile so this email is a little dated. I'll try to catch up this weekend with the seven posts I am behind. You'll have a full inbox next week.
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We finally found a rock crusher near La Ceiba but there's a problem; cost. To buy the crushed rock it is going to cost four times as much so for now we have decided to stick with the river sand.
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We checked into buying a rock crusher and it was $5,000 for a used one. A little bit out of our budget so Willy try to make a crusher out of this.
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Another problem the old molds were giving us was uneven sides. You can see in this picture how thin the side wall is compared to the top.
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We fixed this by adding two gaskets into the mold to make the walls a bit thicker. The only problem with this is that our tops need to be made a bit bigger now to fit the filters.
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We were still having a problem with fissures on the filter bottoms until Willy went against conventional wisdom and started compacting the cement about an hour after pouring. By doing this, we have eliminated the fissure problem during the first 24 hours of curing.
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We wait until there is a heat difference between the middle and sides. When the middle is considerably hotter, compact the sides with a 2x4 as in the above picture. After this, smooth off the top with more cement. Using this method we have made 55 filters without a leak on the bottom.
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Now we just need to wait for the rain to stop so we can paint them.
. Robert Kent Jr- robjkentjr@gmail.com
Wat/San/Health Consultant
www.RobRasa.com/hisblog/
Cell: +504 9871-5396
Work/Home: +1 (631) 458-1119
