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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 11:42 am
by mickg
As a guess i would say from seeing your photos there is no visqueen under the concrete you are mixing and if its taking you a while to do each mix the water is going into the hardcore hence its going hard on you
Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2015 2:02 pm
by VanMarco
Thanks for your replies, and mickg, thanks for just reminding me I FREAKING FORGOT TO SPRAY THE SECOND PART BEFORE POURING LOOL!!!
Now i'm going out I'll take some pictures, maybe I'm dumb but I'm pretty sure the assembly manual of that mixer was written by an an-alphabet, they refer to "lining arrows" that are nowhere to be found, LOL.
Update later 
Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 4:48 am
by VanMarco
Heres the update.
My question for you guys is if I'm doing wrong with the proportions somewhat, on this site http://source4me.co.uk/calculate_concrete_mix.php they are giving different measurements that on the one for the C20 calculator on this website, it seems the water on the C20 is as much as the cement, instead on the other website says half the water than the cement, which is the best proportions? also, for me, it worked much better to mix the ingredients before, and then add water, is that wrong?
Also by the picture, do you think the blades on this mixer are correctly installed? The manual that come with it was pretty offensive in my regards, as my main skills lie in electronics, electromechanics and the like, lol, approximate at best, and by the pictures on the manual those blades seem not to be the ones pictured, however I'd like to ask you guys if that seems OK to you ahah!
Also either I've overloaded it or underloaded it, It said 125LTR and 85L mixing capacity, I've always loaded it with less than 70KG material, am I wrong doing so, lol?
Images :
That's how the ancient Egyptian must've felt when they were told they had to build the pyramids ahahah
Let's wait til Sunday or tomorrow to remove the bandages to the mummy LOL
That's the blade I was referring, I don't know but I feel like there is something wrong with that.
Thanks in advance!!
Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:03 am
by seanandruby
Add some water, then the cement and gradually add the ballast. Just keep your eye on it and add a little water etc; as you progress. It's not an exact science because sometimes the sand and stone could be wet. The mixer is fine. I'm getting the threading a needle syndrome with this post
:;):
Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 8:14 am
by lemoncurd1702
Mixer blades are right way around assuming it turns in an anti clockwise direction. Maybe the holes in them don't help as the paddles are supposed to turn the mix over rather than flow through them but it still looks capable of it's purpose.
Put about half the water in first, then your ingredients and adjust with more water till mix is right. Stuff what the website says, they don't know the moisture content of your materials. As you get to the bottom of the bags of sand you will find it has a higher moisture content and will require less added water.
As for the mix maybe 1:2:3.
It's a bit late now but if you do any concreting in the future ask for "all in ballast" this is the sand an gravel already mixed. Maybe Wickes will swap any unused bags for you.
You have a lot of bulk bags there, should lose a few pounds mixing all that.
Happy concreting 
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 4:43 am
by VanMarco
Thanks for all the valuable infos. Today I have made the first half of the second section (Yeah, I realized that I cannot do more than 1 square metre at once lol) stuff went better than the previous 2, mostly to the increased amount of water, it came uniform and it was easy to finish.
Going forward I'll be faced with an issue, basically the third section going right, will have as the two before the wall as a restraint, but the third section will also have a wall as a restraint on the right (half of the form only luckily) so instead of having the formboard to drive the screed, I will have nothing, so what's done when this happens? I thought of putting some kind of metal rail but I can't figure how, I will also post a picture soon. Any ideas?
Thanks!
Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:17 am
by seanandruby
You can eye it in and use t tamp to tamp it down. Fix some fibreboard to the finished height as a guide, you should be using it against an existing structure anyway. And visgueen under slab.
Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2015 5:02 am
by VanMarco
Hello, yes my thought was to use something like that, and before there wasn't the issue with the existing wall as the screeding went across so no issue there. I have ordered the visqueen too, as I do think that as long as its on hardcore laid there won't be much issues (but I till put it there as well now) but the bare soil. not so much.
I'm also going ahead with the forming of the following sections so even if I can do 1sqm a day, I'll be actually doing 1 a day rather than have to wait for the one done the previous day to set.
Thanks once again, as I can I will put more pics
Posted: Tue Apr 07, 2015 3:56 am
by VanMarco
Hello, lol long time no updates, of course I was actually doing the work ahah, thanks for the advice to visqueen the surface, I get better results with that (probably due to the fact that moisture from the fresh cement does not seep into the subbase so that even if I'm slow I won't find it set
Basically as of yet the job is going smooth, now that I add more water, and by more I mean 4.5/5ltrs total water over 8/8.5KG of cement, I had to increase the water as maybe due to the fact that the gravel is often bone dry, and maybe to the fact that the gravel is mostly angular.. rather than a good mix of both angular and non angular , then a bit more water is needed. Before I was putting too little water getting an unworkable mix.
I have to come clean about this as this is a forum for quality stuff, ahah, basically due to this fact of on one occasion I did really put too little water... section nr2 from the left, half of it, has a big puddle in the middle, and that fact is clearly visible as thats the only spot with water on it, (it was really, really hard to screed off) after that, no more messes at all. For the section with no edge to put the screed on, well... my eye is not that good, it came sliightly upward towards the wall, but nothing specially ugly (I must say that slight slope from the wall aids the water run away). So as of yet going just fine, I manage to do one 1.8 by 1.2mt all at once now, I'm still slow, but I know better now.
Also, I have bought a funny tool, maybe it was unnecessary for the job, basically it's a hand held concrete poker, its a sort of a probe which is attached to a drill-like tool which you stuff into the fresh concrete for a few seconds and it vibrates the material everywhere without leaving pockets or honeycombing
and for anyone reading this post, this is not how stuff is done here in England by professionals, I must say that I have never poured such a big thing before, lol, my only skill so to speak is that I can trowel it real good
Heres some image
Prep
Just Poured and bull floated, waiting to the bleed water to disappear I took a pic lol (the other one I got a blurred picture lol)
