Concrete lawn mower questions (Making)
 

I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.

The width does not have much to do with whether it will be heavy
enough. If you make it 2 feet wide, all the weight will be on a 2 foot
wide piece of lawn.
If you make it 4 feet wide the weight will be on a 4 foot wide piece of
lawn. Exactly the same amount of weight per foot.

If I were making one I would make it bigger in diameter. Probably
about 16 inches in diameter. I would make it longer than 2 feet, but
probably not 4 feet. I might have a problem pushing one that was 4
feet wide.

Dan

wrote in message
ups.com...
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.

First, if you make it wider but not larger in diameter, the effect of the
weight won't change. You'll still have the same number of pounds per square
inch pushing down on the dirt, and that's the issue. You'll just cover twice
as much ground in one pass without putting any more pressure on the dirt.

If you want to calculate the weight of a chunk of concrete, regular concrete
has almost the same density as aluminum, which is around 2.7 grams/cubic
centimeter, or roughly 168.5 pounds/cubic foot.

An 8-inch-diameter cylinder of concrete will contain a cubic foot of
material for every 2 feet, 10 inches of length. So a two-foot section will
weigh approximately 118 lb. A three-foot section will weight about 177 lb.
And a four-foot section will weight 236 lb.

FWIW, that's 2.7 times the weight of an equivalent volume of water, and
roughly 1/3 the weight of an equivalent volume of cast iron or steel.

--
Ed Huntress

The widest form they had was 8 inches. Also, I would pull with a small
tractor.

Will the form hold 48 inches?

wrote in message
ups.com...
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller).

Regarding those figures I gave for concrete density, they're a little high
for plain concrete. They're more accurate for ferrocement or heavily
reinforced concrete.

Plain concrete is closer to 2.3 g/cc. So, multiply the weights I calculated
by 0.85. That means a 2-foot length is around 100 pounds, and a 4-foot
length is around 200 pounds.

--
Ed Huntress

True... except when you go over a bump in the lawn! ;-}
David


wrote in message
oups.com...
The width does not have much to do with whether it will be heavy
enough. If you make it 2 feet wide, all the weight will be on a 2 foot
wide piece of lawn.
If you make it 4 feet wide the weight will be on a 4 foot wide piece of
lawn. Exactly the same amount of weight per foot.

If I were making one I would make it bigger in diameter. Probably
about 16 inches in diameter. I would make it longer than 2 feet, but
probably not 4 feet. I might have a problem pushing one that was 4
feet wide.

Dan

wrote in message
oups.com...
| The widest form they had was 8 inches. Also, I would pull with a small
| tractor.
|
| Will the form hold 48 inches?

You can get them bigger. As a matter of fact I picked up a 12 inch one
from Lowes yesterday for another project. Heading over to the commercial
side of the house you can get them even bigger than that.

It just dawned on me that if you were to start with a 55 gal drum and
put the form inside it so you had a tube made of concrete rather than a
cylinder, you could go big with not quite as much weight, but as always,
that's a bit more complex.

Something else I remember seeing was three shorter concrete rollers (I'd
say they might have been concrete pipe filled with more concrete, but it's
been awhile) of the size you mention two wide up front and one in the back
rolling over the middle gap. Total width maybe four feet or so.

David Courtney wrote:
True... except when you go over a bump in the lawn! ;-}
David
Yup - Average pressure versus spot pressure which is why the thing actually
flattens lawns.
Ken.


wrote in message
oups.com...
The width does not have much to do with whether it will be heavy
enough. If you make it 2 feet wide, all the weight will be on a 2
foot wide piece of lawn.
If you make it 4 feet wide the weight will be on a 4 foot wide piece
of lawn. Exactly the same amount of weight per foot.

If I were making one I would make it bigger in diameter. Probably
about 16 inches in diameter. I would make it longer than 2 feet, but
probably not 4 feet. I might have a problem pushing one that was 4
feet wide.

Dan


--
http://www.rupert.net/~solar
Return address supplied by 'spammotel'
http://www.spammotel.com

wrote:
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.


Forget about th lawn ROLLER, I want to hear about the Concrete lawn MOWER !!!

(see the title to this thread !).

wrote:
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.


Forget about th lawn ROLLER, I want to hear about the Concrete lawn MOWER !!!

(see the title to this thread !).

grin... but if you had a concrete LAWN, why would you need a MOWER?
I could see using a concrete lawn roller (to keep painting it green)
Ken.

"Scott Moore" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.


Forget about th lawn ROLLER, I want to hear about the Concrete lawn MOWER
!!!

(see the title to this thread !).

Yeah, I read the original message under false pretenses, too. I was looking
forward to reading about a lawn mower that needed 15 hp, with 10 hp just to
drive the wheels...

--
Ed Huntress

Ken Sterling (Ken Sterling) wrote in message
...
wrote:
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.


Forget about th lawn ROLLER, I want to hear about the Concrete lawn MOWER
!!!

(see the title to this thread !).

grin... but if you had a concrete LAWN, why would you need a MOWER?
I could see using a concrete lawn roller (to keep painting it green)

That was the other possibility -- a mower for concrete lawns. The blade
would last forever, and there's be no mess getting rid of clippings.

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 14:47:05 -0400, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller).

Regarding those figures I gave for concrete density, they're a little high
for plain concrete. They're more accurate for ferrocement or heavily
reinforced concrete.

Plain concrete is closer to 2.3 g/cc. So, multiply the weights I calculated
by 0.85. That means a 2-foot length is around 100 pounds, and a 4-foot
length is around 200 pounds.

Well, you would want to put some reinforcement steel mesh or rebar
of some sort in your homemade concrete lawn roller, or it'll soon
crack and split into large and unusable parts.

A simple ring of 4" welded wire, with the cut ends welded into a
continuous tube would be my first thought. And weld it into position
relative to the center axle pipe with some 1/4" rod, or it will try to
shift as you pour the concrete into the mold. This will also keep the
axle tube from spinning inside the cement of the roller.

-- Bruce --
--
Bruce L. Bergman, Woodland Hills (Los Angeles) CA - Desktop
Electrician for Westend Electric - CA726700
5737 Kanan Rd. #359, Agoura CA 91301 (818) 889-9545
Spamtrapped address: Remove the python and the invalid, and use a net.

Already did one for smoothing out a model flying field.

55 gallon drum, weld in a center pipe to put an axel through.

Cover the two grooves on the inside with strips of roof valley flashing and
duct tape in place.

Add some mesh for reinforcement and fill with concrete.

Cut drum off of harden concrete and add a pull frame and axel.

Pulled it with a John Deere 110 10 HP while mowing for years.

Now 25 years old and still in good shape.

Hugh

wrote in message
ups.com...
I bought the things to try to make one of these:
http://members.shaw.ca/bomr/Roller.html (concrete roller). The tube
form is 8 inches wide by 48 inches tall. This guy cut it in half to
make a hand push roler. If I wanted to make one to pull behind a small
tractor like the cub, would it be benificial to not cut it in half and
just use the hole form? (All 4 feet?) Would the form be able to take
this weight standing up? I have a one inch black iron pipe to go down
the center and a 1/2 inch black iron pipe to go inside that for the
axle.

I am just afraid that it wont weight enough with it just being 2 feet
wide for an existing lawn.