[TowerTalk] Concrete prices

[Roger (K8RI) on TT]

On 12/26/2013 9:58 PM, Ken wrote:
> On Dec 25, 2013, at 4:38 PM, Roger (K8RI) on TT wrote:
>
>> When I was younger and on the farm, it seemed like nearly every farm had a mixer, and piles of gravel and sand. We'd purchase the cement by 80 or 90 pound bags.  It was so many shovel of sand so many gravel and so many of cement. add water to the desired consistency. IIRC we'd have tho shoveling in, one on the wheelbarrow for sand and gravel and one or two hauling it to where ever.  Then there were those leveling and troweling. For a tower base, the mixer could set at one edge of the hole so you'd shovel in, mix, and dump!  It went fairly fast, but the set up and clean up took almost as long as the work.
>>
>> I no longer remember how many shovels full of each and with only one working hand I don't think of that as a viable approach anyway.<:-))
>
> I believe it is a 3-2-1 mixture:  3 shovels of gravel, 2 of sand, and 1 of cement.    I did my first tower that way (4'x4'x'4') mixed by hand in a wheelbarrow with a hoe. It took two days.     The second time I put it up, I rented an electric mixer.   Both of those were 40 years ago when I was younger ;-)

Strange, isn't it as how much more difficult they've made those tasks 
over the last 40 or 50 years<:-)). Stuff was just so much easier back 
then. Cheaper too!

We had a large (8' X 8'), shallow pan of galvanized with a wood frame.  
If you had 4 or 5 helpers, it wasn't bad, but the mixer was just 
shoveling faster and you could pour out!.  If I'd have tackled this 
project 6 years ago, a pickup load of the sand and gravel mix, a friend 
on a back hoe and the old mixer we could have finished the base in a 
day. Might have been a long one, but it would have worked. Course I 
could still climb towers and fly airplanes back then.


73

Roger (K8RI)

>
> 73, Ken WA8JXM


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