DIY Power Screed
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2024
- I while ago, I had reason to place about 8 yds of concrete at the same time that I replaced my old lawnmower with a fancy self-propelled one.
So of course, I experimented on putting together a power screed. Basically, I chopped about an inch off one side of the blade of the lawnmower (so it would vibrate), and connected some 2x4's.
It worked great, right until the engine gave out. Managed to smooth a 10ft x 10ft slab, and about half of the other one before we had to switch to a conventional board screed.
FAQS:
Q: Why?
A: Why not? I like making stuff, this was something to make, so... I made it.
Q: Couldn't you have rented or bought a power screed?
A: Rented - no. None were available in my area. Bought? Sure. It would've doubled my overall budget, though, and this was "free" in that it was all stuff I was going to throw away in any case.
Q: Why aren't you wearing safety boots?
A: You need to look closer. I was. No, my pants were not tucked in to them.
Q: Did you cut the blade?
A: Yes, I cut about an inch off one side so that it became unbalanced. That's the source of vibration.
I'm not smoking any more weed its 2.30am I am watching a fella standing in concrete with his lawn mower! 👀
This is, without a doubt, the best comment I've received on this video, and some other guy said I leveled his mind.
Phil tourneur sur bois
Pierrette Latorre what?
Ph
Phil...... dam your right . ... I gotta quit doing dabs
I’ve seen this trick done long ago. My grandpa built a power screed out of a lawnmower back in the 60’s. He even had custom cut 2x4s with different crowns in them for sidewalk pours so the water would run off.
I had no idea anybody had taken this approach before. Kudos to your grandpa!
@chilo c chilo ummm no
That's bad ass dude! Won't last long but look at what u saved by making your own! 👍
I'm digging the safety boots.
During the placement, at least, I was wearing safety boots, even though it may not look that way since I didn't bother tucking my ancient pants into them.
Good to be used for large projects and when overloaded. Thanks
This is brilliant!! Too bad the bearings will only last for 1 pour :)
Great idea, thanks for sharing. I have no doubt that the vibrations helped.
Three thumbs up! I like how you laugh at 1:01. It's the victory laugh.
I like your style, bro
Excellent job 👍
Great video and this is smart i like it. you would have been an asset to ancient egypt
Good ideas are usually the simplest ones. Good one. ;-]
Red Green would be blown away by this. But where's the requisite duct tape? Funny and useful.
Excellent idea and if you cut one side of the lawnmower blade a little shorter. It will give it the side to side Shimmy Shake
Thanks. I did cut one end a little shorter. In hindsight, I think it would've been a better idea to add a pulley/belt system, with an unbalanced pulley on the other side. The motor didn't like having an unbalanced blade on its crankshaft :D
I love this! I am going to make one too.
If you do, I'd suggest removing the blade entirely and setting up a pulley system to drive a second pulley with a weight to make it unbalanced. This _did_ die on its first use, I think because the mower couldn't handle the vibration on its drive shaft.
gotta pass this on to my finisher buddies that's fantastic. you saved about $1500 making that than buying one
The economics have since changed. I now see them for about $350 at Amazon. My extensions to this driveway will use one of those.
with chinese imports using whipper snipper engines at over 1k and 3k for euro brands I started looking. Great work buddy
Glad I'm not the only one that's thought about this. Might solo-pour my driveway.. 50x16
From the hop on that plywood I'd go inch by inch until it's adequate on the vibration. Tbh I was thinking just the vibrations from the engine would be sufficient 🤔
There are really cheap power screeds on Amazon now that would likely be easily sold to local concrete contractors after your single use. For that much concrete, I'd go with that unless I had a lawnmower kicking around that I didn't mind sacrificing. The slabs in this video are like 12x12, and I got through I think 2 before the mower killed itself.
Where in the hell were you earlier today! Man, I coulda used that! You're a genius!
lol. got to love it lol ..your thinking outside the box .lol
Brilliant!
Got them DIY rubber boots on too i see... lmao, the guy magging the edge had rubber boots on n was clean as a whistle. Yall are crazy.
I'm a concrete contractor and this is genius!
I'm quite flattered! As you undoubtedly know, power screeds are *not* inexpensive by any stretch. It's *so* much easier to screed if the bar is shaking like a bucking bronco. I don't know that I'd use a lawnmower if I had it to do over again - a reciprocating saw with no blade may be sufficient.
Thanks. This wasn't the first 8 yds. We're slowly building out a homestead, and trying to do it debt free, so the paving has been an "as we can afford it" type of deal. So I've got a little bit of experience, but certainly not contractor-level.
Metro Concrete Inc. Where are all of your videos
Ha, I'm working on my editing skills. This is the only one I have but it's associated with another account that I don't have access to anymore.
Metro Concrete Inc. I understand editing computer can be a pain, this summer I'm working on a garage pad roughly 32x32 on grade level wish me luck,,if you have any ruff footage that work.
Im about to do a driveway, and 2 16' x 28' 6" slabs, really curious to try this lawnmower idea on mine. it's exactly what the doctor ordered. I already use a sawzaw with my own head for vibrator, have for years
If I were doing a driveway today, I wouldn't do the lawnmower thing. I'd pony up the $600-ish to buy a commercially available vibratory screed, like this one: amzn.to/3eR79mr
That said, if you have an old lawnmower you don't care about, and don't mind the fact that this will destroy it, it's a really fun project.
My kind of tare into it approach. Just throw the guard away. They get in the way.
Yep, good short term idea.
A+ for effort
You leveled my mind with this one.
Pretty ingenious dude. Kudos.
Duuuuuude I give you credit on that...that's pretty cool idk if I'd use it on my job site but it's pretty cool
good job.
Great idea, and really looks like it worked out perfectly! cheers from Brasil
that was cool
Wow pretty creative but at the end of the day it probably would have been less work to screed it by hand.
I did quite a few slabs on this project, most of them by hand. The motorized screed was a huge improvement over hand screeding. Not even close. This hack took maybe an hour to slap together, and the screeding dropped to around 3 minutes per slab (10ft x 10ft). The only downside was that it killed itself and we had to finish them by hand.
Iceberg 👌👊
Ingenious!
that's INSANE me too!
That's the best ever😂😂😂good jo
OH GOD! You need gum boots mate! You'll get chemical burns with those ankle boots!!
Hard to tell in the video, but I _was_ wearing boots for the actual placement. I'd already learned my lesson on a previous slab.
If she doesn’t find you handsome, she should at least find you handy.
Evil genius laugh 😆
Sometimes things are not as we imagine them.
pretty good idea! how much did you cut off the blade? just trying to think how much imbalance it took to throw the bearings out of the lawnmower
An inch or so.
esta Chido el invento ahora Inventa unas botas de plástico para que no te metas con zapatos al cemento
Pretty Fucken Clever !
Two thumbs up !
Best hack I've seen on you tube
That is just fucking cool...................
What the fuck? LOL that’s pretty ingenious
No lo hicieron muy bien pero muy buena idea
All this work, and this guy has no concrete boots lmao
I was wearing concrete boots, actually; those were just junk pants, so I didn't care if they were tucked into the boots or outside them.
Early Ehlinger did you cut some of the lawn mower blade off on one side to make it vibrate ?
Yes - about an inch. Though the mower was pretty crappy and probably would've vibed enough to do the job without that step :D
If you offset the whole thing a few degrees it would pull easier. Maybe move the whole mover a foot either way and mount it to the rods 15 deg off from the direction you're skreeting?
Very cool, quick and cheap.
Yeah, and a sawzall works great as a vibrator held against the forms. (without a blade, of course :) Do you think the motor would have lasted longer if you had not cut off the blade? Probably destroyed the bearing, eh?
I found a sawzall works really well on the forms this past summer while making pavers. For something this large, I think it might work as the means to vibrate a screed, but not against the forms. It's hard to say if the motor would have lasted longer - I did replace it for a reason other than "I wanted to try out this crazy/stupid idea," after all. But it definitely wouldn't have made things worse to keep the blade in tact. If I were to do it over again, I'd replace the blade with a pulley, and have a belt drive a separate pulley with an off-center bolt through it.
It's not a "stupid" idea at all. Maybe stupid and crazy like a fox... :) I like it a lot. I'm going to try it myself with a little tweaking and modification on a series of slabs I'm going to pour by myself, (to save money) making up a large contiguous slab area for a shop floor. I'm going to mix the sand, cement and gravel myself (cause it's dirt cheap if you do it yourself and don't have it delivered) using a series of 3 or 4 or maybe even 5 cheap electric cement mixers.
They're slow as molasses individually but by the time you finish with loading the last one, the first one is ready to pour and re-load, etc. I'm going to see just how big of a slab I can do by myself in one go that way. Might have to use a curing retardant also if it takes too long or is too hot.
I'm thinkin' I can pull off around 10'x10'x4 to 6 inches thick, but maybe larger! We shall see! The separate pulley idea is clever too but I think I'll try it first with just an intact old lawn mower. Just the vibrations from the motor itself should do a lot. If not, I'll do your pulley idea too maybe cushioning things with rubber &/or springs too. I like the orbital sander idea for vibrating forms too... Cheers!
Thanks. My thinking ahead of time was "crazy/stupid," and after was, "can't believe that worked."
I recently placed roughly that much (though it was more like 10'x5'x12") with one mixer since it was in a creek bed and getting a truck anywhere near wasn't feasible. I found that the time spent in the mixer is not really the bottleneck, and I actually appreciated the rest I got while the machine cranked.
Good luck with your slab.
Prost Zum Wohl!
Crank bearing isn’t going to put up with that for long
Indeed. It didn't.
Whats done to get the vibration????
I cut about an inch off one side of the blade, making it unbalanced.
I'm confused as to why there are so many downvotes
this is a freaken bad ass idea!!!! Lol do u still use it?
Thanks, but it killed itself. I suspect if I'd used a pulley system to separate the vibrator from the crankshaft, it would've lasted much better.
Would did it faster with just the 2 x 4pendajos
I heard your dad wanted you to cut the grass again so you ordered a load of cement and F'ed up the mower so you wouldn't have to cut the grass next week...
WTF...the dude is mowing his concrete...shit man...fire it up!
Needs rubber blocks and washers or it won't last 10 minutes.
Shows what you know. Lasted 15 minutes.
Early Ehlinger dude that comment got me to subscribe
LMAO!!!!!!
cool
It help vibrate concrete bubbles off too?
That's the basic idea, yeah.
예취기 그것으로 콘크리트 미장. 칼 만들면 돼겠네
Old Scrap Extension ladder would have helped to vs building all that...lol
Indeed. If I had one :D
Dude! Yes! I have one or two! And a cordless sawzall. This is happening!
smart!
how did you cut the blades even or not FFF?
I've updated the FAQ in the video description to address this question. Thanks!
A big chipping gun would be better than a lawn mower... Maybe huh i dunno
Sure, or a reciprocating saw. Really, anything that vibrates.
1:04. :)
did u remove the blade?
No - I cut about an inch off one side so that it would be asymmetric and therefore vibrate like crazy. I suspect you could just as easily mount a reciprocating saw with no blade.
нормальное видео ! и весело :)
Спасибо
or you could just strike it off with a 2 x 4
@@earlye Boom shaka laka!
Lol that looks like a serious pain in the ass.
This is why men in sandals should be thrown in jail.
hi
Lol did that actually work good? Serious
It worked quite well, actually! Smooth in one pass.
This what happens when you do drugs 😂
would a 2.0 AMP 1/4 SHEET SANDER Work in place of mower
I'm not sure. I know I've seen videos here where people use orbital sanders against the form when making concrete counter tops. I doubt there's enough force for a slab of this size (10'x10').
If I were going to make a substitute, I'd probably go with a reciprocating saw strapped to the board, and a clamp holding its trigger closed.
thank you for your response i also thought made a snow thrower
Early--A bolt in a small hammer drill works great to vibrate forms.
I've been doing some smaller scale paving in my back yard lately - with those plastic forms for making "stone" walkways and patios. A bag a day makes great exercise. Anyway, I found that a reciprocating saw attachment for my cordless drill, slamming against a putty knife, makes a fantastic micro-scale power screed, and also works really well for directly vibrating the form.
( tamp first ) while placing...
^
What in cousin’-f’in-tarnation is going on here?
LOL!
😧
?
Canstruction video channel Farhad kpk
시비ㆍ 양키야 장화없냐 한국꺼 수입해라 보생꺼 쥑인디"ㅋ
ŒŒŒŒ
Horrible...put some boots on smh..
I was wearing boots (during the placement of the concrete, anyway). I learned that lesson the *very* hard way about a year prior to this video.
Clever idea. Horrible video editing.
lol, waste of time
Why a waste if it worked?
John, obviously you have never skreed concrete by hand with a 2x4.
why ?
Dumb and pointless...for that small slab might as well screed by hand. Those 2 by's won't last long either you would have to keep replacing them. Buy a real magic screed
Jesse Houston thank you so much for your expert opinion. You're absolutely right. It was dumb and pointless for me to make this, when a power screed, on the low end, was about $700. I didn't learn anything in the process, and I ruined a lawnmower that I would otherwise have just thrown away. My back didn't appreciate the lack of exercise from avoiding hand screeding at all. Really, I appreciate you gracing all of us with your holy wisdom.
Early Ehlinger well said
urrrr no...not if you want a big dip in your floor. you obviously now nothing about concrete. you just brought all the water to the surface
I suggest you take a look around at the bazillion projects built using power screeds and/or concrete vibrators. It's not an uncommon approach, nor does it bring all the water to the surface.
When I go look at these particular slabs, there's still plenty of aggregate visible at the surface, and there is no dip. There's a slope, but I added that intentionally to help water shed off of the driveway.
The vibration actually improves the strength of the concrete, by helping _air_ to escape so that the slab is more solid, and fully encases the steel reinforcement.
Dave Jenkins lmao! That's the worse fake expert opinion I've seen!!! Thank you!
it stinks
gotta pass this on to my finisher buddies that's fantastic. you saved about $1500 making that than buying one
Noot Brown