Ginnerbeck viaduct for Rylston Light
Posted: Wed Jul 08, 2020 5:06 pm
Building Ginnerbeck viaduct for the Rylston Light Part One.
My grandfather had a bell. It sat on his mantelpiece and for twenty years he claimed he was looking for a bicycle to fit it. Madness clearly runs deep within the family. This is the story of the build of Ginnerbeck Viaduct; built before the landscape (into which it will sit) has been built.
The odd order of build is necessary because I needed the exact dimensions of the viaduct before I can finalise the footprint of the new raised beds for the RLR.
The intended plan: The intended elevation: I have an old set of JigStone moulds. Some time ago I grew tired of joining individual blocks for larger projects. I made a mould for larger sheets of stonework to ease this. I decided to use these sheets for the basis of the viaduct build.
I am not sure I would recommend this build method. I kept on having to buy more resin to cast the sheets required and it has made me realise that the profit margins for suppliers such as Pendle Valley resin kits cannot be generous.
I decided to cast the underneath of the arches after some thought for the order of the build. I knew the nominal length of the viaduct and I wanted five arches. I then had to scoot around to find a large bucket/barrel of the approximate diameter as a former. The most suitable bucket was tapered but I reckoned that as the viaduct was on arc I could absorb the taper in the difference in length of the inner and outer circumferences.
I used the mould for the wall panel draped over the bucket/barrel to cast half of the under-arch stonework. For this I used U-pol resin from Halfords. This is thick and can be spread over the curved mould without it sliding off the side onto the floor.
When I had two of these hemi-arches I then used the barrel again the join them into a single 180deg arch. This joint was strengthened with a layer of fibre-glass resin. This process was repeated to generate the five arches required.
Next instalment to follow . . .
My grandfather had a bell. It sat on his mantelpiece and for twenty years he claimed he was looking for a bicycle to fit it. Madness clearly runs deep within the family. This is the story of the build of Ginnerbeck Viaduct; built before the landscape (into which it will sit) has been built.
The odd order of build is necessary because I needed the exact dimensions of the viaduct before I can finalise the footprint of the new raised beds for the RLR.
The intended plan: The intended elevation: I have an old set of JigStone moulds. Some time ago I grew tired of joining individual blocks for larger projects. I made a mould for larger sheets of stonework to ease this. I decided to use these sheets for the basis of the viaduct build.
I am not sure I would recommend this build method. I kept on having to buy more resin to cast the sheets required and it has made me realise that the profit margins for suppliers such as Pendle Valley resin kits cannot be generous.
I decided to cast the underneath of the arches after some thought for the order of the build. I knew the nominal length of the viaduct and I wanted five arches. I then had to scoot around to find a large bucket/barrel of the approximate diameter as a former. The most suitable bucket was tapered but I reckoned that as the viaduct was on arc I could absorb the taper in the difference in length of the inner and outer circumferences.
I used the mould for the wall panel draped over the bucket/barrel to cast half of the under-arch stonework. For this I used U-pol resin from Halfords. This is thick and can be spread over the curved mould without it sliding off the side onto the floor.
When I had two of these hemi-arches I then used the barrel again the join them into a single 180deg arch. This joint was strengthened with a layer of fibre-glass resin. This process was repeated to generate the five arches required.
Next instalment to follow . . .