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The Oak Bay Stands

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Those of us with an interest in heavy construction, especially the quality control aspect thereof, will note that the concrete forms used in building these stands back in 1939 were not made of plywood. Before the war, plywood would have been seen as too exotic and expensive for such a use. Normally tongue and groove or shiplap would have been used. The point made here is that it appears even that tongue and groove or shiplap was not used to make these forms. Nope; it looks like cheap old plain Jane deal was used and even at that it was crudely put together. Even on this very public structure, the surface has not been well trimmed and it has not been sacked, either. This old construction inspector has seen better looking headwalls on culverts.

These facts lead on to speculation. Were the forms perhaps built by students and, as an economy measure, was a pedestrian design of all planes selected so that deal could be used and the planks reclaimed for other uses? Perhaps the deal was, essentially, loaned to the students; the depression was still on, remember and cash was scarce but not labour, especially student labour. The planks coming off these forms would have served just fine as joists. The design is very "heavy", too; nowhere is there an element in tension. It makes an observer suspect instantly that this was a mass concrete design and that, in turn, would be consistent with a student built structure since the students could then have avoided the cost of steel (light weight, tension bearing ferro concrete structures would still have been a bit new in 1939).

One could go on! If this were a student project, then maybe the concrete was mixed by hand. If so, a superb job was done. This structure was built long before air entraining was part of concrete technology yet the surface of this structure after 24 summers and 24 winters looks far, far better than many an exposed concrete surface today that is only five years old. That might point to hand mixing since such concrete tended to have much more air in it naturally than did machine mixed concrete. We can say for certain, in either case, that somebody enforced a very good standard indeed of cement, aggregate and water proportioning and of mixing and placing throughout.

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