I was very pleased with how the lab sessions went over the weekend. I had been worried about our ability to get the nickle chromium wires to stay down low enough so they would be covered when we put down sealant, but the idea of masonry nails and washers that Kyle and I came up worked even better than expected in my opinion.
I am a bit surprised at how much sealant we went through (2 whole buckets between both coats we laid down), but the important thing is we got everything covered. We added a lot of sand to the sealant, about 35 dixie cups of sand per container of sealant, which is more than I expected we would need, but the sealant just was not getting thick enough with smaller amounts of sand. I am still a bit confused as to why the hydrated lime was so poor in our trials and it may be worth while to contact Ray as to what we may have done wrong. It was just very evident from the field trial from the previous week and the small experiment that Travis and I did in lab that it was causing the cracking on the surface of the sealant as well as the visible white streaks.
I hope we can locate a Power Supply soon as the cold weeks of winter are starting to run out and we really need to test the system now that it is built. Nonetheless, I am very pleased with the progress the team has made this past weekend and look forward to seeing the system in action. I spent a total of 13 hours over three days the past 2 weekends setting up the system and I hope my work was not for nothing and the system will do what it is intended to do, or at the very least give us some good knowledge on how to improve the system.
~Jon
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