Learn How To Finish Concrete Smooth | Steel Trowel Concrete
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- Опубліковано 10 лис 2019
- #howtofinishconcrete #finishconcretesmooth #mikedayconcrete
In this video I'll show you how to finish concrete smooth using a mag float and a steel trowel.
The best way to learn how to finish concrete is to watch how a professional does it, then go and try it yourself. There's no better way to learn how to use a mag float and a steel trowel than to just practice with them in some concrete.
If you're new to concrete, I'll show you the basic techniques of how to finish concrete smooth with these two tools.
In the video I talk about the right time to start finishing the concrete and how long to wait in between each time you float it or trowel it.
Concrete finishing is really an art, it does take some practice. You have to combine both timing the set of the concrete and knowing how to hold and use the mag and trowel.
You will see in the video how we hold the steel trowel, how we tip it one way then the other as we trowel the surface and how much pressure to push down on the trowel to smooth the concrete.
After watching the whole video, you will have a very good idea how to mag float and steel trowel finish a concrete floor smooth.
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Thanks Mike, I've been looking forward to a video like this 1, I learned alot this morning with your video, not everyone has a power trowel! 👍
Awesome Eric!
Hey Mike fellow apprentice carpenter and finisher here I'm 27 good enough to do my own Jobs and do. I'm a contractor now. But some advice for you because I like you. Your a solid dude. Upgrade your camera you will get waaaaaaay better results with the veiws over time. Trust me
Love your patient explaining! SUBSCRIBED.
We call ‘em knee boards. I was gonna ask why you didn’t just hit it with the power trowel a cpl times but you answered that right at the end.
🤜🤛
Sometimes we'll hit it with the p-trowel first and chase it out with the knee boards. This was one of those hurry up and get it done floors.
Gonna be finishing off a slab in my barn that was left gravel for a dozer. Doing it 20'x35'x6" slab with #4 18 on center tied into the existing slab because I'll be installing a car lift. Thanks for these videos. They are giving me some things to think about before I go in blind.
Concrete looks great! Thanks!
I watched this video seeking advice on finishing a slab with a metal
trowel...THANK YOU!
I was watching this while a slab I just poured was drying...
thank GOD I did!
During your commentary you keep mentioning that,
you and your crew had been pressing down hard on your metal hand
trowels. This seemingly irrelevant information saved my concrete slab!
I would have been likely, not to apply a lot of pressure and probably
wouldn't have been able to pull the "cream" to the top achieving
a smooth finish (on the top of the concrete slab) to later lightly
broom.
Thank you for sharing your experience with concrete. I learned not be afraid of really working the concrete (while wet and drying) with a some force to pull up the cream...and some finesse for a smooth slab surface.
Thanks again for sharing!
You are a truly master in the trade,thanks for share your knowledge
Thank You!
Mike, I worked for a concrete guy named Mike up here in Northern Michigan and he was about the same build as you, you remind me of him, a really good guy to work with. So here I am years later pouring a sidewalk 5 foot slabs at a time, it's just me, my electric mixer and a couple pallets of Quickrete.
Knee boards, go figure.
Great video! Thank you!
Nice job Mike its always good to mop it up now & then by hand!
Yea, we do it a lot this time of year.
i remember this past 2019 winter sometimes it was so cold it felt good to be inside the concrete you could legit feel inside your rubber boots how warm the concrete was and it felt somewhat relaxing in a way lol
Good stuff Mike, I appreciate you posting this.
I appreciate your style of working. Very few left man
Thanks Julio!!
There are 3 of us coming up brother
Great video. Very helpful
Here in Michigan, I use my knee boards. Those are pine boards with oak handles, old school. My stainless steel I call “sliders”
Great educational video thanks
Thanks for sharing you knowledge and on such a coldish day! Here in Oregon, we have been blessed with dry and cool weather. Finally got started on pouring concrete path to our greenhouse. This video you just put up helps so much on how to steel trowel. My third pour today and each pad looks better than the previous. Still want to start the finishing too soon. Gotta just walk away and let it sit longer. I like your finger touch demo.
Yea, wait till it's ready. Too soon and you're just making more work for yourself.
Good job mike
Thanks for the information.
Knee boards. We used to make them out of boards back in the bay. You’d have to pick each one up and move it over and over. Sliding ones make a world if difference
That's cool. I remember using 2" styrofoam in 2' squares, one for my knees and one for my feet. I would keep moving them back like you did.
Thank you very much for this. I have an unlevel floor with all kinds of warps in the original pour. I am mixing my own with 1:2 portland to masonry with fine sand, watering the floor, and dumping the dry mix in the puddles, mixing, and troweling to the water line. So far, this is working with excellent strength, but it's not exactly beautiful. I will probably try your method here with a skim coat once everything is level.
Love your videos! Do you put expansion material between the concrete floor and foundation wall, or pour the concrete right up to the foundation?
I used one of those concrete patio Mold's only for small scale platform, had ready mixed bags, didn't smooth it as much as I should have and didn't used a mag, bits of aggregate are floated to the top on dry so brushed off as much as possible, should have added more cement to make it a smoother mix I guess, Im going to make an SBR and cement paste/slurry 50:50 Water and SBR and a little Cement then paint it over the stones and that should give me a great bond and smoother finish. Listen to this man, one of the best channels on here
Great video,I'm back to delivering concrete. In a front load truck this time. Figured since I bought a house might as well do the concrete work myself where it needs replacing. Thanks
Good luck!
Great video!
Great Video! Mike.
Thank You!
You really give great information
Thanks!
Hey mike , I watch your videos for a top up every time I do a new project. I am building a skatepark for somebody. The banks (transition) dont't really allow you to float in a fan pattern because you dig into the curved transition above where your working. What would you recommend. Just over lapping back and forth?
Hey Mike we haven't used calcium for years. It's a different type of accelerator now. We still call it calcium but it's not. The calcium reacts with the steel reinforcement and corrodes it.
Great video, thanks for posting. We call them sliders too in Washington DC
We finish a lot of floors this way now that it's cold here.
Hi Mike, excellent video and explanation, thank you.
We want to build a concrete porch behind the house (southern Ontario). After watching your video, I’m thinking 1. Mag Float (2 passes)
2. Steel Trowel (2 Passes)
3. Broom
Do you recommend in that order and would you skip 1 or 2 because of the. Brooming
Great videos! I'm a novice who is mixing, pouring and finishing my own concrete. You use hot water and calcium chloride. I use room temp water, pouring a 4-6 inch slab. How long should I wait before I finish it?
Nice job!
Hey Mike, You may have mentioned it but, when is it appropriate to mag/bull float and broom vs. mag/bull and ste trowel? Most pours for the state I've ever been on, we never steel trowel. We just float and broom.
You have the best most informative videos Mike, thanks!
Good material control Mike.
A Copter smoothing would serve you well
But surely you know that.
Just curious....when the weather is more hot, less moisture, do you do the sanme process? Do you do a mist spray between troweling phases?? Ifyou were to get your typical quikcrete and add mortar, for projects, could you get a smooth finish also? Your thoughts..and THANK YOU.
would like to see it after it dried, for smoothness Concrete as you know is hard to see the finish Great job! I am about to embark on a pour (800 sf Ill break it up into 4 separate pours. Also has heated floor. )where 1 I can't get the material delivered so hand mix and pour. and then no Power float. so Ill have to do it all by hand. Q: do you think the smoothness is good enough ie achievable for the final floor? My wife and I like polished concrete as a final floor finish. No tile not coverings at all. thoughts?
got your hoodie, Mike. Awesome. Thanks. And thanks for all the great advice through your videos.
Gd info thks
We use 2 inch pink foam about 2ft by 2ft pieces. But I am gonna try them skid things this year ! getting old lol.
I did also about 25 years ago. Then I tried these. Once you get used to them you'll love them.
I kept wondering why i would pull chucks on concrete off from my steel trowel when I was finishing. I’m assuming it’s the same thing as with the slides. I can’t just pick it up, I have to kinda slide it and then pick it up. Also I was always told when finishing with steel trowel the first swing should be about 3/4” high and when coming back to lay it as flat as possible. Or does that not really make a difference?
How do you like the big duck bill mag? We call sliders usually
Hey man got a question about trowels. Are blue steel round finishing trowels applicable for everything. Ive seen some crews use both blue steel and stainless steel for different passes and that never made sense to me. Are stainless steel mainly for burnt/hand trowel finish floors? Overheard some contractor talking about hard trowling or something? What is that
Great tips and you make it look so much easier than my experience. I've worked as a helper on a number of slab jobs and I'm curious as to why you don't seem to have the common issue I've seen of stones near the surface which makes toweling and edging very difficult at times. I was wondering, do you use 3/8 stone on your jobs?
jitter bug it !!!! we do all are basements and garages that we crawl the hole floor for sure makes your finishing much easier! great video mike so i have alot of respect for you you and your amazing team every job site looks clean noting in the way as your hitting edges or bullfloating. the prep work is what make jobs run smoothly like you and your crew keep up the great work and thanks again for the help throuhg out the videos i know your concrete giuy and how hard it is to and for you to take the time to let others see the problems and your troubleshooting skills and patience is amazing
How has nobody mentioned that Mike looks like Tom Cruise yet?!?!
How much pressure are you putting down when you trowel your 2 and 3rd passes?
What is a good length mag trowel size, and a good length steel finish trowel size? Thanks,
I poured today too! 30 yards ..its been hovering at 33 degrees, foam underneath, I have insulated blankets I am going to put on right now, (9:30 pm) we have bad weather coming tonight too, (upstate ny) 1% Non calcium chloride accelerator, hot water mix
I'm not a big fan of the non-chloride accelerators. Only use them if I have to. They don't seem to work as good as the chloride one's especially flake calcium.
@@MikeDayConcrete thats good to know. I dont do alot of cold weather pours, so its real nice to see you cover the topic and see how you do it. I went there today to check on the slab and it was warmer than my hands were, I almost think it was 70 or 80 degrees, its amazing how much heat the concrete generates while curing. Also amazing how well these concrete blankets work, bought them for a job one time and they already paid for themselves, I think they are 12x24. Good videos mike, thanks for the response
We call them sliders too lol,my guys are gonna be confused when I say "pass me those skids". You remind me my pop Mike; old fashioned techniques, smooth ,& flat. Great work fellas
Master Roshi we call them knee boards. Lol
That's funny! Sliders isn't a part of our vocab, it's always been skids for some reason.
Mike Day Everything About Concrete which I am a concrete finisher from Louisiana. Lol
Great video. Do you pour most of the winter in Maine? I'm in north east Tennessee and I usually have 2-3 weeks a winter I can't pour.
No, it slows down a lot in the winter here.
Another good vid. Poured a ramp in -20 today here in CAN which was foolish by the person hiring. Had to put tarps n heaters n should have just waited a week
Yea, I've been there bro. It's no fun. Did it come out all right?
@@MikeDayConcrete For now I guess. They'll probably have to go back in the spring. Ground was frozen solid under it
Gday mike question for you. What’s the difference between a power screed and vibrating beam and can you make a vib beam with a small Wacker/compactor plate as a power source? Cheers from the uk.
A power screed could mean a number of different kinds of vibratory screeds, either walk behind or ride on. I think most people refer to power screeds as vibratory like the Shockwave by Marshalltown. I've never used a vibrating beam but they look like they need a form of rail to ride off from on each end to get a level floor. I'm not sure about using a compactor for a power source.
from Aus! call them skids here aswell!
Hi, great video. Is it necessary to steel trowel if the surface will be tiled over? Seems a rougher finish would help with adhesion.
If u don't. Mind I can answer that.
You don't have to kill yourself making it smooth...just make certain it's level.any high quality thinset will bond to concrete.smooth or rough.
If it's smooth. Though....notch troweling the thinset will be easier.
Another thing done quite often is making a "dry pack mix"
Typical Portland to sand ratios
But not as much water added.
It's easier to manipulate and will cure just as strong.ive done jobs where I build up the dry pack cement and thinset back of tile and set it...doing it all in one shot.
However some expert tile guys like to screed their dry pack bed to perfection...let it cure ..then next day start slamming tiles👍hope this helps
How do you feel about using a funny trowel? We like to do one last and fast pas with a lifted funny after we’ve smoothed the surfaced. (Interior mix)
Funny trowels are good. We've always done it this way but that'll work good also.
Justice served!
I’ve been hand troweling floors for about 2 years now, and what I’ve been doing the last dozen or so floors is hit the pad twice with float blades on a power towel , and hand trowel it twice and it’s done.. I think a power trowel makes a flatter floor if you use that to float, which in turn makes hand troweling behind it much easier. I do love the novelty of just hand floating/troweling cause you can save yourself a few hours. That being said I think just using a power trowel to float you don’t loose a lot of time, because it’s the power trowel on troweling blades that steals the time..in my experience... I have noticed you don’t use float blades more then one round which i find interesting, I ussualy use them as long as possible, up to 3 rounds sometimes.. my boss/trainer has been doing concrete for 20+ years and he would always just either all hand trowel or all power trowel.. I don’t see why you can’t do a bit of both.... wondering if anyone else does floors like that? taughts? Also I don’t think there’s anything more beautiful then a nice hand trowel finish👍..
Sometimes we'll hit the floor with the power trowel first, then chase it out with the skids. Sometimes we'll also 2nd float the floor but most times only once.
You have so much to learn my friend,there's many ways to skin a cat
You have so much to learn my friend, there's many ways to skin a cat and concrete slabs are not the exception
pocoyo batista I would agree with that. I just taught I’d share what I’ve had a lot of luck with on small to medium size slabs and if he has used that same method.. I’m not sure how he pushes the stones down with just one float but that might come with experience..
Do bull float first and then use the mag float? Thank you for sharing! 🙌
Did you get an answer to this question? I was also wondering, for a basic do-it-yourself backyard job, if I could just do wood float and then steel trowel.
I call 'em sliders, or sometimes, skids, because that's what they do, slide across the concrete. Kneeboards are wide rectangular boards with handles and a thick foam padding
Yea, I used to use styrofoam as kneeboards back in the day.
Here in Ohio we call that a flat trowel finish. But they usually want a hard trowel finish on any floor where the concrete is going to be the final finished floor. Usually the flat trowel finish is OK if they are going to cover it with tile or carpet or something, but if the concrete is going to be the final floor they want it a lot smoother. like glass. Smooth enough that you don't hear those little popping sounds from your trowel hitting stones and you can a mirror image in it.
Hard troweling also makes the surface a lot harder. It's not just cosmetic.
Right on, thanks John!
Mike is this like the olympics where it just looks easy ? Or is it easy ?
Do you not find that every trowel stroke always leaves behind these two lines (corresponding to the two ends of the trowel) and when you try to remove one of these two lines with another stroke of the trowel you just create two new lines, and you can never really remove the trowel lines?
Omg thats crazy,
What’s the difference from the rounded trowel and square one
Not too much really, rounded one tends to leave less lines because it doesn't have pointed corners. My guys like the square ones, I like the rounded one.
It might be a huge time investment on your part, but I'd be interested to see you watch someone trying all of this for the first time and see how you would tell them what to look for at each step.
1% or 2% calcium for that temperature? Do you have a rule of thumb in regard to the temperature and the percentage of calcium chloride / polar set? Thanks for the info.
We were a little over 2% for this floor. But we needed it to dry very fast. I don't really have a rule of thumb, it depends on the temperature mostly, the sub-base, if there's hot water in the mix or not, the temps that night (freezing or not), if it 's the first pour or 2nd pour of the day. Just a lot of little factors go into the decision on how much we use.
I use a 18 inch mag it better than smaller one usally
Those are skates in minneapolis minnesota
Skates! That's cool.
Couple pcs of 2 inch blueboard Styrofoam made great kneeboards👍
In Oklahoma we called them slides
How do you know when to start with the steel?
It depends on the temperatures and if the sun is on it or not. It's just timing but takes a bit to learn. We usually steel trowel 15 to 30 minutes after mag float.
@@MikeDayConcrete any sort of manual indication? Like too hard to press?
Heh Mike....how far into your timeline did you bull float it? I noticed you said it was about 1/2 hour since finishing the pour...you said you'd start trowelling.
I can’t speak for Mike, but with most crews, bullfloating comes right away after screeding. As soon as a man has a chance to ‘come up for air’, he’ll jump on the bull float. If you get a little behind and can’t hit it right away, you can sprinkle a little water on the surface just to help float it out.
🤜🤛
Yea, right after screeding. When the concrete is setting fast, you want to bull float asap.
@@psidvicious Cheers! BTW love the handle psidvicious....remember it well!
@@MikeDayConcrete Thanks very much Mike....I have alot to learn......!
@@MikeDayConcrete Oh yea, almost forgot. Speaking of getting behind on the bullfloating. If the concrete is setting up fast on you, you can put a cpl bricks on the float or a few trowel fulls of wet concrete to add some weight to it and that can help out a lot if a sprinkle of water is not enough.
🤜🤛
Its nice to get off a slab and not be behind!
You got that right!
We call them sliders. We prefer to use pozz over the calcium
I've always had good luck with set times using calcium. Not so much with other accelerators.
Can you film it further away?
Same, we call them knee boards
Yea, sometimes we call them knee boards too, but mostly skids.
Isnt steel trowel for a indoor finish?
here in oklahoma we say sliders
Awesome Robert!!
Hey mike day me and my coworker was having a conversation about your video! I said to him you hit the slab with a mag once and then a steel trowel! He said no you went over it 2 times with a mag can you end our argument please!
I'd have to watch the video again but usually it's 1 mag then steel trowel
Thank you he thinks he knows it all lol the guys I work with like to mag the concrete 3 times and I feel like its over doing it!
Western New York we call knee boards
Awesome!
We call them skates
ya we call them knee boards also
Knee boards and skids is what we call them mostly.
Southie ☘
115° wouldn't be considered warm water.
My water heater is set at 125°. And I can't hold my hand under it.
It's hot 🔥
No knee boards are different
If they were calling for rain at noon, you guys were pushing your luck. I’ve done that before an got caught, than it takes me a whole month to work my nerve back up to flirt with the weather man agin.
on those slabs that have concrete walls around them I always edge them I just think it looks better. I was always taught if you have good edges you can sell just about anything.
What would be the outcome if it were to start pouring rain or just sprinkling? Dusting and chipping?? Do you cover it with tarps? What would happen to the concretes surface or structure? If this happens to a company does it take a lot of time to come back and fix the damage? Haha Thanks for any help!
No work for the small guy up here do to wheather, I can't afford rip outs yet no time to go back so I close Jan, Febuary, mid March is my new year, I'v got a big family down there maybe I'll take a look in real time 🖒
Got family where, in the US?
@@MikeDayConcrete Taunton Mass, new bedford and Salem mass,
Your knees aren't hurting because your not a complainer
we use stepping boards here in aus, they look so much better to use holy shit
"Sliders"
Concrete skates is what they call them here
I Lost All Hope When He Said “the concrete will dry faster”.
Skates
No trowel mahks.
"Surf Boards". Since you finish an ocean of concrete some days.
Called skates
Awesome! Do you use them much?
Ya mostly everyone that does flatwork, should own a pair
We call them kick boards
Concrete is a sponge the more water the harder it get forever
Mike...time for a haircut honeybunch.
I just got one!!
@@MikeDayConcrete YAYY NOW UR GORGEOUS AGAIN!!!