The end is near! That is how we all felt as we showed up for what we hoped would be our last day of work on the Eagle Project. Yesterday, we had picked up the last two bricks (that we needed to have re-done) so we hoped that in addition to spreading the decorative rock, we could seal the patio today.
Early this morning, we picked up Cameron (Joshua's friend from Troop 1... who put in more hours than any other scout) at his house in Providence. Later we were joined by Cole & Ridge. It's so nice to have kids willing to give up their last Saturday of summer vacation to move rock!
We arrived at the synagogue at about 8:00 am and began the first order of business... a final bit of excavation where the blue tarps had been secured in place. After that, we laid the weed barrier cloth. To our amazement, there was exactly enough cloth to cover ALL the areas we needed. I think someone is looking out for us!
Sandee's was due to deliver our rocks at 8:30 am, but somehow the delivery got delayed until 9:30. However, we made good use of the time by getting all the loose ends tied up. As soon as the decorative rock arrived, we got busy. We loaded up the wheelbarrow and began to spread it all around. Once again, we were so appreciative of Sandee's Rock for not charging us the customary $45 for delivery because they wanted to support this Eagle Scout Project.
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| Shoveling rock in front of the hedges. |
It didn't take too long to get all the decorative rock into place and we amazingly had just the perfect amount of rock to get the job done. On top of that, we were able to lay the two remaining engraved bricks... so everything was just falling into place.
Next step in the process was to begin putting sand between the bricks to pack them in tight. This was a bit tricky because we had to find a way to pour the sand without getting ANY sand on the engraved bricks. That is because we're using a special polymer sand between the bricks, that hardens when it gets wet.
So, following the advice of the owners of Castalite (the brick wholesaler) we covered up each engraved brick with duct tape. As you can imagine, this took a bit of time and was quite tedious with the hot sunny weather.
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| The engraved bricks have all been duct taped. |
Once the tape was in place, we began to pour in the sand and sweep... and sweep... and sweep. You never saw so much sweeping! Since it was getting hotter by the minute, we all began to have concerns about the gumminess of the duct tape on the bricks. So we decided to remove the tape ASAP. Looks like we timed that just right... because the tape was just beginning to get sticky.
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| Pouring and sweeping the sand. |
Next, it was time to run the tamper (again) over the bricks. To protect the engraved bricks, we had to keep running the tamper over wooden boards. Since we only had three boards, it was like a relay race as each boy kept picking up a board and laying it in Devon's path, as he drove the tamper around.
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| The dreaded rental tamper is back! It weighs a ton. |
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| Ready. Set. Go. |
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| Gotta keep that tamper going. Picking boards as fast as they can. |
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| The "tamper dance" continues. |
Before we could start spraying the bricks with water (to harden the sand) we decided that we should blow off all the engraved bricks. Unfortunately, just at the time Devon was trying to start our leaf blower, it decided it was time for the cord to rip in half! Curses.
So there we were trying to quickly figure out a "work around". Since it's a ridiculously long drive back to Logan to fix the blower... we decided in the long run it would be cheaper to just rent one. So off we went back to Howes Rents to get a blower.
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| Joshua with his leaf blower (aka "Proton Pack"). |
The piece of equipment we rented was hysterical. Wearing it, Joshua felt like one of the guys from "Ghostbusters".
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| "Who ya gonna call? GHOSTBUSTERS!" |
Finally, the bricks were clean enough for us to begin watering them. We all crossed our fingers that the polymer sand would know just what to do and harden!
The final step in the project is to apply a sealer solution on top of the bricks to bring out the natural color of the bricks and give them a protective coating. Since we have to do this on bricks that are bone dry... we are planning to do this one night this week.
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| Almost done! |
TO BE CONTINUED... (Eagle Scout Project Part #8)
