I'm preparing to put in a sidewalk along the back of my house, maybe 30 or
40 feet total. I have a big pile of aggregate, lotsa cement power, a pile of
sand, and some basic cement working tools. What I don't have is any
pracitcal experience. Are there any good resources for DIY sidewalk makers,
and any practical advice anyone would like to share?

"Zootal" wrote in message
...
I'm preparing to put in a sidewalk along the back of my house, maybe 30 or
40 feet total. I have a big pile of aggregate, lotsa cement power, a pile
of sand, and some basic cement working tools. What I don't have is any
pracitcal experience. Are there any good resources for DIY sidewalk
makers, and any practical advice anyone would like to share?

Do a small section at a time, perhaps 3 to 5 feet. Make joints between
sections so that it will crack in the joints and not elsewhere. It will
probably need to be 3 to 4 inches thick to not break up later. Use as little
water as possible and still be able to smooth the cement. Keep it damp and
protected from the sun for a few days. There are lots of DIY books and other
information on cement work. Try one section and see how it turns out before
tackling the whole job.

Don Young

Zootal wrote:
I'm preparing to put in a sidewalk along the back of my house, maybe
30 or 40 feet total. I have a big pile of aggregate, lotsa cement
power, a pile of sand, and some basic cement working tools. What I
don't have is any pracitcal experience. Are there any good resources
for DIY sidewalk makers, and any practical advice anyone would like
to share?

That is a lot of area. You are likely going to find that it is going to
be cheapest to order readymix concrete from a truck. One in-experienced
person is not going to be able to keep up with the truck and the job.

Finishing concrete right (to look good and to last a long time) takes
not only book learning, but hands one experience with someone who knows.
Check around with your neighbors to see if anyone has the experience. Also
check for a couple of good strong high-school boys (or girls) for some grunt
work and a good learning experience for them.


--
Joseph Meehan

Dia 's Muire duit

"Zootal" wrote in message
...
I'm preparing to put in a sidewalk along the back of my house, maybe 30 or
40 feet total. I have a big pile of aggregate, lotsa cement power, a pile
of
sand, and some basic cement working tools. What I don't have is any
pracitcal experience. Are there any good resources for DIY sidewalk
makers,
and any practical advice anyone would like to share?



One idea is to make your own pavers. Make or buy molds that you can set up
in your garage. Have enough molds to use up one batch of concrete. Each
night you mix one batch, cast your pavers and in short order you have enough
for your side walk.

On the weekends you can prepare your ground. Dig out the area you want to
have your walk and bake a nice base of crushed rock and sand over that.
Then you can set your pavers into the walk way and spread sand around to
fill the cracks.

By doing it this way future problems with tree roots, or plumbing issues are
no problem as you can always remove the pavers and get to underneath without
a jack hammer.

This method also allows you to play with color and patterns.

--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.

One idea is to make your own pavers. Make or buy molds that you can set
up
in your garage. Have enough molds to use up one batch of concrete. Each
night you mix one batch, cast your pavers and in short order you have
enough
for your side walk.

snip


Funny, I"ve thought of doing exactly that, and also pouring some custom
border sets also. How big would you make the pavers, and how thick? I also
looked at buying some, but the ones at the local hardware store are more
then I'm willing to pay

"Ook" Ook Don't send me any freakin' spam at zootal dot com delete the
Don't send me any freakin' spam wrote in message
...

One idea is to make your own pavers. Make or buy molds that you can set
up
in your garage. Have enough molds to use up one batch of concrete.
Each
night you mix one batch, cast your pavers and in short order you have
enough
for your side walk.

snip


Funny, I"ve thought of doing exactly that, and also pouring some custom
border sets also. How big would you make the pavers, and how thick? I also
looked at buying some, but the ones at the local hardware store are more
then I'm willing to pay



I would think that 2 to 3 inches would be thick enough. The size you make
is up to you, but I suspect that somewhere around a square foot or less
would be about right.

As for the shape you are stuck with the off the shelf molds unless you make
your own. If you were going to make your own I think that some interesting
patterns can be obtained with Penrose tiling. Some examples:

http://www.scienceu.com/geometry/art...g/penrose.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PenroseTiles.html

You really want to get inspired, look at some of M. C. Escher's work.

Other neat things you could do if you made your own would be to make
Styrofoam cutouts that you could set in the bottom of the mold and then cast
the concrete in one color and when you remove the paver from the mold, you
could then fill in the space with another color. By using Styrofoam you
could cut the pieces with an angle so the inlay would interlock.

I really like the idea of pre-casting concrete. I want to make a picket
fence out of concrete just to see if I can do it.


--

Roger Shoaf

About the time I had mastered getting the toothpaste back in the tube, then
they come up with this striped stuff.