zoothorn

Yes will note thanks. But its the inner tube thats perished/ Ive spent hours trying to fix finally got it on.. then blown again. total fkn n'mare. so I gotta travel 30m to get another inner.. or if they have these ^ then I'll get instead. whole morning on this damn thing.

Its a 3.5- 8. Inners are £2 on ebay.. but I can't afford the wait to post/ mixer goes back to chap end of week. Thanks Onoff.

Yes but £30 I just can't do tbh. Ive put 5x patches on all round the valve.. finally got it to stop bubbles, but yet to put wretched thing back in tyre/ on rim etc. I could buy a new inner but 20m away £15 + an hour I could do without. Mud's my other big prob today/ clay & just clogs your boots making any job almost unbearable. I have to do this today, or tmrw then mixer is away.

At the moment I cannot proceed bc of thre damn barrow tyre/ trying desperately to fix it. stupid damn design should be a solid tyre without exception for a barrow prone to getting punctures in a gdn- som far its impossible to fix it.

Dug me holes, & set tubes in: will be 85 cm above lower two.. quite a height, but didnt want to risk adjacent steep bank instability, by digging them too far down. A bore of a job lots of clay oomshka/ raining etc.. urgh. So I'm ready to lose my mixer virginity tmrw. If only swayze would swoop down hold my handle & relieve me.. I can only dream.

Yes indeed- I was wondering tho if easier to put 1/2 bag of cement in maybe.. then 2 buckets+ worth of ballast. Maybe I'm thinking wrong.

Honestly when Onoff does his maths stuff I feel more stupider than most labourers.. I'm right back in maths class panic rising cos I cant understand wtf is going on. I shall take your laymans approach & Onoff's maths & go s'where between the two. Terrific help as always chaps.

Crikey I don't know how you understand this maths stuff- its alien to me (7.5 x 1.51.. I just have no idea how you'd consider multiplying these).. but appreciated! Anyway understand "half a bucket of cement is a bit more than 1/2 a 20kg bag". But isn't cement normally in 25kg bags tho? It makes my chap's method look hilarious- he just winged in ammounts & looked alot.. until mixed! he was so fast (each bertha took us only 1.5 hrs) I didn't have time to look/ see what was going in you see. He poured straight from the concrete bag ~1/3rd at a time afaict.

Ok going with that (it'll have to be 1:40 waterproofer.. I think that's approx what chap used for the big berthas). Is 1/2 a bag of cement, approx 1 bucket?

Saved that link- very useful. Ok so for a load say on the bit-smaller than usual (to make it easier to pour for me alone) how many of those full Onoff-black-buckets of ballast would you say? then I can work out the 4:1:0.5 ratio, water as 0.5.

Can I swivel the mixer round on its base, once mixed? I mean my idea was load it then move it round 40* to tip into barrow.. to make loading it more convenient > swivel > tip/ empty barrow > & swivel back 40* to load again.

Slim possibility- had thought of it.. but its a pig of a slope around tube, & getting the b'stard off the stand etc.. it was a job with 2 of us I thought. I should imagine its alot more caked-with-concrete than your clean one Onoff.

Ok I have a galv barrow.. seems ok tho not so big. I might try some side stabilizers if I can fashion something. I had no idea it could be poured turned off/ not spinning. Ok will do this I think each time tbh. Ok now the mix. If I were to put in 8x 1/2 full buckets (those decent size yellow jobs kinda like Onoff's black one ^) its not feasable to measure out a full bucket of cement really is it to get my 4:1.. if I had another spare bucket maybe so, but say how many full buckets would a 25kg bag be? Then approx how much water with this volume of ballast/ cement? I'll have to do just a cup+ of waterproofer/ hardner(?) each mix as got only 2l at best left (this should equate to what went into the other mixes ~ approx). Thanks chaps.

I have a feeling that's the best advice I'll need. Thanks PeterW. So barrow handles -away- from mixer.. I mean I guess I couldn't get the sod out if t'other way round tho. unless swayze took hold of my handle from the other side..

I forsee a helluva lotta swearing tmrw then. Yes I wish I had patrick swayze to hold my belle handles even if he got a stiffy tbh Id put up with it if it meant my barrow doesnt fall over. I might put some chaps on backwards in case swayze goes hammer & tongs mind you.

Good point- will do tonight. One thing I was amazed at- was the small size of mixer's drum attatchment to the motor: it only looks about 1.5" wide! I cannot believe how much pressure must go on here for such a thin spindle. And after 18 years of full abuse this one's had too. Can you tell me about how the drum weight sits once its 'full'? I mean maybe 1/3rd full. IE directly over centrpoint below.. or does it tend to pull one way a bit. just seen my fav moistboyz song has quite alot of swearing in it! oops. nevermind. bach next time.

Right its time for a musical interlude before I lose my cement mixer-virginity. I expect to achieve excess chest hair & my general zootmusk levels to rocket to absurd levels by tmrw ev. Thanks alot chaps. Moistboyz..

Aha ok understood. Ok just done that- found a tarp: bucketed down onto tarp nr mixer > pulled last 1/4 down in dumpy bag almost killed me > whole lot back into dumpy bag next to. Ok mixer Q: once "full" (well drum looked sort of 1/4 filled when we did big lower tubes.. but via a chute I made > down > into tubes, hence a lighter mixer load) so is that maybe what, the drum 1/3rd full? And the balance when loaded: is the design of this belle that centre of weight is directly over the centre stand midpoint? or does it tend to pull over a bit one way fwd or back when loaded?

Aha ok understood. Yes that's a better plan. Do i need to pile it onto something, or into another huge dumpy bag tho? or can it be dumped on the ground/ getting bits of earth in inneviatbly etc.

Aaah.. haven't seen T&J for 30 yrs. I'm so behind the mouse now.. no, I don't have a cat/ awful stinking creatures roam & crap on my property.

Andy- thanks so much for this post/ will be following what you say. Yes best to crack on with 1st pillar & take stock. I hadn't thought of bringing ballast down & put next to mixer.. we did it before by me going up 2x 2/3rds full buckets each time brought down > hand to chap mixing. As the hardest part was filling buckets/ carrying, wouldn't I be adding a huge chunk of extra work 1st reforming a pile next to mixer tho? I'm not too happy with shovelling into mixer (safety) happier bucketing in.. tho even this gets me in a bit of a sweat thinking of worst cases etc/ hands nearer the rim.

Good pics @Onoff useful those looks great too- one thing against me is the ground on which I'm working. Its a steep 45* slope, so we had to cut the mixer into side & away from 1st tube.. so not only ballast is 4m up a steep slope above mixer, but Ive got to mix into a barrow > push each mix up nasty ground 3m to tube > in. And my barrows got a fkd inner tube dammit I need to prep 1st. If I jumped in today- it'd be a n'mare.

Well, no: a bit more thinking is needed: I need to get prepped as best I can- the ballast bags 4m above mixer, alot of extra hard work to get it down bucket by bucket, ive never used a mixer before so gotta do each footing flat out/ done.. & I MUST get them bang level (bc the across beam this side will lie directly from one to t'other- if I get one fractionally short cos I run out of xyz, I'm stuffed). And I need to get mix ratio right & ammount of water + gubbins.. I don't even know how best to do this yet.

Understood Onoff & thanks @andyscotland for figures- got in a pickle last ev I couldn't understand A from B. I'm going with what you say. Tubes not in yet- gotta dig far one today. Yes I could shovel ballast into the 2 tubes as a test.. but jeepers that adds a huge extra work/ take me hours/ then back into bag again etc. I'm not sure you see, how much volume the cement & water adds after the setting process etc.

Yup did notice the sand. reminded me of crap holidays as a kid. but honestly just thought it was the 'crumbs' from the bigger bits. tbh I shovelled so many buckets I was thinking rather too much on the consistancy reminding me of my hobnob packet I ate that day. whole lot all in one go, & quite an abundance of crumbs at the btm too; the crumbs you see kind of remained in my brain, & took the place of the sand.