Hello, Has anyone used one of the skidsteer mounted cement mixers? I mean the ones you load like a bucket and then dump? I have a fairly large island footing pour and I am considering one of these for it? Just not sure if they work like they say? Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks
I made one from an old mortar mixer. It's useful and I have poured slabs and set fence posts with it. The trick is to know how much to load in the bucket before adding cement. My technique was to premix gravel and sand and scoop it into the mixer, tilt it up and then add the cement while mixing. My driveway took 6 yards of concrete.
This one can be loader, backhoe or skid mounted and drive into the pile to load.
http://static.monolithic.com/gallery/equipment/integrator/index.html This is a commercial version of the homemade mixer I used. To dispense cement powder I rigged up a stand that had a rotating drum that could be moved by pushing a lever and it would dump a metered amount of cement in the mixer. My biggest problem was variable moisture in the sand interfering with proper mixing. May have to mix more concrete in the future so I am already looking for more junk to make up a new mixer and this time I need to take pictures.
Well, I have built over 100 concrete foundations, and probably close to 150 block foundations. And when I say built, I mean I am the guy who actually takes responsibility for them. Let me be the voice of reason for you. There is NOT a large profit margin for local redi-mix companies. You are NOT going to do it cheaper than you can by calling the trucks. By the time you pay for sand, cement, aggregate and (if you don't have plumbing yet, water transport), PLUS the trucking on the above, you might be close. Now you have to MIX IT (labor/machine)!!:lmao NEXT YOU HAVE TO LOCATE IT (chutes,buggies,skips,shovels, blood, guts, etc.)! AND IN YOUR CASE, you still have to pay for the new toy attachment! That said, if you want to do this because you want to play with a new toy, well you have my blessing, of course - no bigger gearhead than me. But DON"T do it for economical reasons!!!!
Special tool, Please note that this is an island and although I own one barge we would still need to barge over fully laoded cement trucks which must weigh 50 tonnes. That is two barges ( one for redi mix truck and one for pump truck) plus waiting time for each plus per yard pumping charges and buying the cement on top of that.
One last thing......I do think there is big money in redi-mix and aggregate. Lafarge is one of the biggest companies in the world......and around here they are buying everyone.
Yes - now consider that same transport necessary for a non-consolidated group of materials that I mentioned earlier. It is the same. Also - Lafarge is a cement manufacturer, not a local redi-mix company.
Lafarge has a huge ready mix division, but rumor around here is they are trying to sell out their Colorado operations due to some big purchase in Egypt (IIRC) BTW, i completely agree with the economics of buying it vs making it. By the time you handle all the materials and figure all the time involved that mixer and pump on a barge might not look so bad as long as you are dealing with full loads of mud.
bb, what area/lake are you on? If this is the area that I'm guessing it to be, he really doesn't have the option of hauling loaded concrete trucks to the island via barge. A barge on most of our lakes here will do well to carry 10-15 ton, often 3-4 feet of water is all they will have to work in at some of the access points.
I concede...... and greywynd you are correct.
big builder, I don't think the rest of the guys understood the small sizes of the barges used on our small lakes, a lot of these guys see and use the large shipping barges and the likes, which would often carry 1 (or more) ready mix trucks. Maybe if you could tell us what kind of volume of concrete mix you will need for the pour, someone will have a suggestion. Myself, the only machine mounted mixer I was ever around was one of the 3pth style for a farm tractor that ran off the PTO, still required shoveling to load it though. I wonder.....with the skid steer mounted one, would anyone make onboard weigh scales that would work on a skid? If so, could concrete be figured out by weight for mixing instead of volume? I'd still love to know what area you're in, drop me a PM if you want. I grew up on the Kawartha lakes, and I'm still in the area, just not on the water like I once was. I know a couple of the barge guys near us, in fact a good friend of mine worked for, and basically built the barge the one guy has. It's just large enough that they can float a tandem (loaded) on it, but they often dump two loads on the deck, then unload with a skid steer at the job site end.
I you have a look at the link in the thread I posted above you will see the skid steer with the load meter. BTW, that machine is Down Under made.
Dont know why I didnt think of it before, but have you looked at a volumetric mixer? Cement tech makes a small one that holds enough material for two yards of concrete. Seems like if you are in an area that is all accessed by boat a guy might be able to offer a nice little service there with a unit like that. Here is a link to cement tech's product page http://www.cementech.com/mobile.php?id=5
my neighbor has a bobcat 723 with a cement mixer that goes as an atachment was built by his dealer when he bought machine new, Ive used it on my place a coulpe of times to build fence cementing posts and its a handy tool we would get pick up load of cement mix and bags of cement mix drive bobcat where mixer was easy shovel hight and mix the cement then you could drive bob cat as far as needed and poor mix in hole a great labor saver
I'm just curious, what does a yard or meter of concrete cost in your area? Brian
Options I agree with mud maker a mobile concrete maker (volumetric) would be an option. You could stock pile you materials a make as needed.
About 145 a meter. One big expense is the waiting time for the truck and pump. It's about 6 hours by the time you load the mixer, shuttle it over, blow your load, clean up, and shuttle it back. They charge for everything over an hour. In the end I bought a big gas powered mobile mixer. I will load this with my wee excavator and shuttle the cement to the footing with my track carrier or skidsteer. I have never done it like this before but I'll try anything once or twice.
How many cubic yards is the job?Years ago "1950's",In my area contractors made use of 5 yard stationary mixers.They had a gas engine on them.They would stockpile all the matierial before the pour.Then start mixing.They would load it and haul the concrete with a loader tractor.sometimes they used a crane with a concrete funnel.
The job should be about 15cm. The bigest mixer I could find locally was 1/2 yard. I would love to have found a 1 yard mixer but not to be. If this works well then I will keep looking for a bigger one. I found a couple online but they are always too far away.........like the US. THe key here is my tracked dumper.........kubota KC 50. It will easily handle 1/2 yard so while they are taking it the place I will be mixing another . I am building a funnel aparatus to go over the mixer so that I can load it without spilling. One of the biggest problems is that everything we build here is on bald rock so the terrain is very uneven and the footings have many steps in them. I am only pouring footings mix so I have a little flexibility.
That sounds like it will work.Getting the matierial to the job is the hard part.Once you get it to the job site ,have plenty of help on site.If you can keep the mixer going all the time ,It wont take that long.Probably get it done In one day.And if not wash out the mixer at quitting time and start again the next morning.Good luck with the pour!