"Dan Musicant" wrote
"cshenk" wrote:

:Ok thanks! Not the same project we need but interesting thread to me!
Kind
f the 'learn something new each day'.

My back yard has some faux brick concrete work.

Good! That seems the cheapest easiest way to go for us. Thats a high
concern as we've had $25,000 in repairs since since return (would be closer
to $50,000 had we not been handy folks able to do much of it ourselves).
Just bad luck of the draw with tenants but at least they kept us with enough
from rent that we still own a house.

A tip or two: I used my wheelbarrow, a nice big 6 cubic footer. Use a
garden hoe to mix, mix, mix the Quikcrete (or any other concrete
mixture, even one you make yourself from Portland cement, sand and
aggregate) with the water. I have 3 hoes, and one was perfect. The
corners are rounded, so it doesn't scratch up my wheelbarrow. I cleaned
the thing out afterward. I don't want my wheelbarrow looking like the
one the plumbers used when they did my sewer lines!

Grin, good point. I have a cat liter bucket I was going to try to use. One
of those tidy-cat plastic things but it may be hard to mix properly in that.
My only wheelbarrow is plastic and cracked at the bottom. My own fault
there, when stacking the 2 cords of wood, I dropped some pieces from too far
up and it caused that. Still works for all other needs.

Thinking... I have lots of construction grade (thick mill) plastic in big
pieces I can use to line that wheelbarrow. If a little seeps though, it
wont be a problem. Alternative is a bonus left from the renters, a large
cat litter pan we found tucked in the rafters in the garage last week
(grin). Seems that would work too.

My little project here came out pretty well. The portion I did actually
looks a lot better than the stuff it was completing, which wasn't too
sharp.

Hehehe sometimes, thats the way of it. I've not done *much* work with
cement but I have done small odd jobs over the years with little batches.
Most 'recent' (if you can call 2000 'recent') before this was a nearby
neighbor who's retired (limited fixed income), and crumbled back steps.
Quite elderly with arthritis in the hips so this was both dangerous for him,
and beyond his ability to fix. Other than replacing his steps with pre-made
'blocks' and just mortaring them in with a little cement we mixed up, all my
other projects have had others do the 'cement detail' while I sorta watched
if not doing some other task.

(OT but a sideline of mine from 1989-2001 was about 10 hours a month helping
people with disabilities, make adaptions they needed but couldnt pay for.
Mostly I built or adapted computers for the blind with screen reader
software but i also did a fair amount of making ramps and things like that
as part of a group. Many fine memories of working with and for people but
(grin) not much personal cement work on my own part. Oh and yes, one of the
members was a proper certified inspector and would run the permits for us if
the particular job in his estimation required one. Like many things, you do
what you can).