Driveway 4

In go the soil and cement footings. Half a bag of cement to 16 shovels of soil.

Towards the end of the pour it started to rain, up go the tarps...I sent Liz off to get some more cement. This is how much I had left to go. Fortunately she just got back just as I finished the last pour.

This is some of the sandy clay that is very deep in the ground.

The morning after - more rain. Notice the quality of _my_ crappy camera...

Drive Way 3

I've just formed up the first track of the second drive way. This one will be 800m wide rather than 600mm. This should make it easier to park.



I used packers sometimes to make sure the timber position is just right.

I had to make a bridge so I can actually get the concrete where it needs to be.

Instead of encounter heaps of tree roots (I just had a few), I had to remove a thin layer of concrete that was left over from the building.

Cement Driveway 2

Another day and another track in my drive way. My soil and sand mix seems to be working well. I get many questions in my unorthodox approach, but it all makes sense to me.

Full of over confidence, it was a late start and a late finish - 6:00 by the time I could do the broom finish.



I went for the full bag mix with the cement mixer. It strained and groaned and even stopped when I went to unload the mix into the wheel barrow.
Here are some pictures of the soil and cement mix - much like mortar.
I got Liz go go to Bunnings to get some ordinary cement. The frigging idiots there pointed her to Builder Cement (has fly ash for more workability), but I did not want that. I wanted a stiff mix with low slump. I really got annoyed with Bunnings poor customer service and Liz had to go back and then they gave her some cheek about what the difference is.

Cement Drive Way

9 bags of cement later and track one of the cement driveway is done.

I first layed a bed of soil and cement and then laid the "real" concrete (100mm thick with some spare steel mesh). The real concrete consisted of soil, recycled aggregate and cement. I opted for a broom finish. The reason for this bed of soil cement is because I had to excavate to about 200mm to remove a lot of decaying roots. I could have simply compacted the ground or filled it with gravel, but it was just cheaper to use soil and cement.

Being a cold day, I didn't have any issues with the concrete going off too quickly.

The ozito cement mixer is gutless, you could hear it groan as it mixed. It didn't actually stop, but I'm sure it could have easily happened. I would not recommend the cement mixer for any serious work as it really slows down under load and like all Ozito stuff, it is under powered. The last thing you want to do is have to stand around waiting for the mixer to mix properly and worry about it breaking down. But for me, it was a good buy.

I also elected to stabilize it a bit more by fixing the bottom bar of the stand to a piece of 4*2 just to make sure in no way could it fall over.

cement mixer

Just bought a cement mixer. A Bunnings Special - Ozito 4.4 cuft 370W 125L OZCM44A.

The reasons why I like this one are as follows:
1) Light enough for me to load it onto my ute by myself.
2) Seems to just take up less space then the other models.
3) Big, good for mixing compost with dirt for the garden.

I bought floor stock and I did not have to assemble it myself. However, I wondered whether I could make it even lighter by taking the drum off and this is how I did it...

1) Remove the fan casing and fan.

2) Using multigrips, stop the motor from free wheeling



3) Make up a "jig" as can see below using some timber just so you can get a grip on the bowl. The timber inside the drum is flared to grip the drum between it and the outer piece.



4) The important bit, rotate the drum off the right way. And this would be counter clockwise - just like taking a lid off a jar.

5) I took the time to grease the thread just so it will be easier to remove the drum in the future.

Stairs now open for business

Now that shakey is not here, it is safe to open the stairs. I even put in a poll for that extra bit of safety. I can send Louka to the dungeon without going out side ;).