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Concrete Tips
- Concrete looks easy but can be a little bugger.
- When you dig out the hole for the concrete, make sure you keep the depth all the same. A 4" slab is figured like Lumber sizes 4" is 3 1/2", you are ordering concrete at 4" deep, but you set it up at 3 1/2" deep, other wise you will run short of concrete, 6" is 5 1/2" etc.
- If you need a lot of time to pour a slab, have the Concrete Company put a Suspender in it, it will be wet for a longer period of time, until the suspender evaporates, then it sets up normally. This can make it really wet so you may not want to work it a lot with the BullFloat.
- want that Concrete job to come out better, wet it down every day the slower it cures the harder it will be.
- want a different look, before you do the final Troweling, throw Rock Salt on the Concrete and Trowel it in to the finish, when you wet it down the Rock Salt dissolves and leaves little holes in it.
- want the Finish like a mirror, black and shinny, you need a power Trowel for this one, attach a can of water to the handle of the power trowel and after it is really hardened, sprinkle water on it and keep Troweling, it will get Black and Shinny, careful don't put the brakes on to fast or you'll slide out the back wall of the garage. This is really hard on the blades of the Trowel, you will heat up the edges quite a bit.
- Don't let the concrete tools lay around to long or the concrete will be very hard to remove.
- Make your own hand float with a piece of 1 x 4, attach some kind of hand grip and away you go, you do need a Bull Float, but most concrete company's or Rental places have that, you use the Bull Float after you are done placing the concrete, it smoothes out the finish so when you go to hand Trowel it, it is smooth and it also works up a cream that covers the stones, if you work up to much cream with the Bull Float, the surface may chip off later, so just enough to smooth it out]
- Check out the latest in Tools at CornerHardware.com
- Best source for concrete information from layout to curing Portland Cement Co/Concrete Basics.
- Allied Concrete Tips about the use of Concrete
- Concrete Information, they even have a Concrete Caculator ConcreteHelp.com
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