Concrete mixer bucket.

[jamesy]

You e laid 500 cube with that bucket

Think he said square metres

 

[jamesy]

I find with our pan mixer you work away at an average of 4 batches per hour, that allows it to mix properly. 3 cube/hour. Could go faster though

 

[Daniel]

500 square metres, about 75 cube. Erm its £55 per cube for ballast and cement so the basic concrete, the fibres and plasticiser add £20 per cube, laying weldmesh would be cheaper, the fibres are so much easier than laying mesh though, no cutting mesh and then twisting your ankle on it, the strength is right through the slab, the super plasticiser is needed to make the mix runny enough without adding too much water, so the fibres lay down in the top surface, also less water means a stronger mix.

Its harder work than using readymix, but once you've got the hang of it, know exactly what amounts you're using and crack on, you can lay exactly how much per day you have the time for.

 

[Daniel]

I find with our pan mixer you work away at an average of 4 batches per hour, that allows it to mix properly. 3 cube/hour. Could go faster though

I reckoned we were doing about 3.5 cube an hour, the problem I found was being patient enough for the fibres to mix properly. What would really speed the job up would be a weigh cell on the boom, then i would know the exact amount of ballast in the mix each time, I think the next generation Merlos have weigh cells so one day!

 

[Sandy]

Ah right we recently finished a steading using 450 cube with our old lorry mixer that was a big enough challenge

 

[S J H]

Has concrete gone up a lot? Thought it was £72 last year?

 

[pellow]

Has concrete gone up a lot? Thought it was £72 last year?

Was quoted £78/cube for C35 this week

 

[Daniel]

We were aiming at RC40 spec but who knows what it was!

 

[Hesston4860s]

Put a slab down for a shed 4/5 weeks ago the concrete for that was £71.50 a cube.

 

[DieselRob]

So when you are shovelling straight out of the heap how do you know how much is in the bucket? Does it have level markers to indicate whats in it or are you just having a guess? Looks a good setup but I think once you factor your own labour and cost of handler to run it I think personally I would prefer to buy readymix, don't tend to have a problem with them turning up like buses when we have a couple of wagons ordered so we are lucky in that respect

 

[Daniel]

I used a flow meter to work out the volume of the bucket, fill it to approximately that line and work on 330kgs of cement per cube pro-rata.

I doubt there is much of a saving but having used our spare time to lay a couple of large pads we've now got the machine so we can just do smaller jobs whenever rather than saving them up to a full load etc.

 

[beaconsboy]

Just wondering how the bucket mixer is going. Would you buy another 1 and do you think its quicker than a pan mixer

 

[Pan mixer]

Just wondering how the bucket mixer is going. Would you buy another 1 and do you think its quicker than a pan mixer

Good to bring back an old thread.

I don't like the 'ineaxctness' of the bucket compared with the pan, interested too in how it has been going @Daniel

 

[Daniel]

Used it a couple of days ago to mix half a cube for a ring beam for Dads greenhouse to sit on.

Have used it for all kinds of things, it probably is no cheaper than readymix but it's so handy.

I can judge it pretty well by eye as to sand and cement amounts but it is an art filling it to the right level sat in the cab, if you over fill it the spiral won't rotate and you have to tip some out and start again.

We've an 8 ton digger these days so if I sit that by the ballast heap I can bang in the same amount of ballast each time in seconds with the ditching bucket.

One trick i have learnt is don't let anyone touch the water hose, its very easy to turn it to slop, and its happened a few times now that some keen lad has added a bit of water whilst my backs turned and overdone it!

 

[beaconsboy]

We got a pan mixer and then i bought a 3m cement mixer that is ok. If you could get a 1.6 meter pan that would be good

 

[Pan mixer]

We got a pan mixer and then i bought a 3m cement mixer that is ok. If you could get a 1.6 meter pan that would be good

You would need a big unit on the front of it to counterbalance it though - my old 8210 needs a full set of weights for a 0.75 cube machine.

 

[Tha Ulsterscot]

You would need a big unit on the front of it to counterbalance it though - my old 8210 needs a full set of weights for a 0.75 cube machine.

The only fault I find with my pan Mixer is that the gear box ratio is too high, and the tractor has to run too slow. this makes it a hard drive, More revs on the tractor would be ideal.

 

[beaconsboy]

I just leave the tractor in place. Tip it into a grain bucket. Then when you tip in out its spread 8 feet wide already. Do you think if i put a 3 foot extension on my pan mixer it would still work. Shes due reline anyway

 

[robbie]

We're in the process of buying a pan mixer,
It's not much if any cheaper than readymix but we can do odd bits as and when we want when we have a spare couple of hours.

The best price I could get for cement is £2.60 A bag(£104 t) delivered minimum 1 ton.

Is there anyone on here sell them who would offer a special tff discount? I've inquired with 3 companies 1 was too dear and the other two haven't got any in stock for a couple of weeks.

 

[sandy2210]

good to see you using the proper ppe when handling the bags of cement