Welcome to our article, Mix your own cement, article one.
Dear readers, this original article is too long, so, I am making two blogs, ant this is the first blog. Anyhow, here we
want to explain how to mix concrete, in several ways, we are also going to mix
other things as well, and the name mix your own cement covers them all.
The reason why, we are writing this article how to mix your
own cement, it is because we want to pass our knowledge of how these things are
done. So, we are writing this article for
those people that are willing to do building work themselves, but they need a
bit more knowledge to give them the courage to do it; and above all for those
people that live in poor countries, where building skills and material are
scarce, therefore, they need some knowledge to try building themselves, as long
as they can buy Portland cement and/or lime to mix it with; so, this article can
be D.I.Y article.
This article “mix your own cement” (concrete) is going to be
a long and detailed way of how to make concrete from scratch, using Portland
cement and other basic materials, we will also describe how to mix mortar for
the bricklayer and cement plaster, just by using the most basic building
materials, by mixing them with Portland cement and/or lime. We will describe
how these things were/are done, because we believe that it is helpful to know
that.
We must say that today building anything has become easier,
because most things that we need are ready made for us to use, provided we are
living in a city or large town in the western world and in many other parts of
the world. In our case we are talking about how to use cement and the things
that we can do with it. So, let us suppose that today we need concrete; we can
order it, and have it delivered whenever we want it.
But these things were not so in the past, in the past people
that were building had to have their own skills how to mix their own concrete,
how to mix their own mortar and other things, and sometimes they had even to
find the building materials themselves, before they could start to build
anything, they were not easy times and people in the know, kept their knowledge
for themselves. But today it is different, the knowledge they had and kept to
themselves has become insignificant compared to the things that we know and do;
so, to keep any knowledge for yourself is the wrong thing to do, because it is
not going to help you, but it can help other people if it becomes common
knowledge, but this knowledge can be useful for those people that don’t know
yet, because they happen to be in a different part of the world, so, they would
like to know.
Therefore, this article is being written, in the hope that
our articles can help those poor people that are not aware that they can build
a better place for themselves, if they learn to recognize the basic materials,
they need to use for building a place for themselves. Most of the building
materials that we are talking about are available anywhere in the world,
because they occur in the natural state as they are part of this great planet
earth, so, what are those building materials you may ask? And how we mix them you may want to know, so,
here is a link from YouTube that shows you how to mix concrete.
How to Mix Concrete by Hand - YouTube
We would like also to point out with these photos here under
what is available in Brisbane Australia, and then we will talk about those
building materials that occur anywhere in the world.
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What are these building materials?
Anyhow, I know a lot how to mix concrete, since I have mixed
it by hand and with a mixer hundreds of times, so, let us see these building
materials and how to use them.
First, let us see what these materials are, then we will
take you through how to mix them. (To view these matereals in Hub Pages, click on the link, Mix your own cement.) Today you can buy these building materials
ready to mix, and all you need to do is to add the right amount of water and
mix them, but here we want to start everything from scratch:
In building anything with cement, there are five main sort
of materials that we need to recognize, before we start mixing our batches of
whatever we want to mix, they are; bricklayers’ loam, plaster sand, river sand,
gravel, and Portland cement; with these materials you can build anything, some
of these materials sometimes are called with different names, but let us
describe what these material are like:
Bricklayers’ loams is a very fine sand, some of these fine
sands could be a tiny bit sticky and when it is wet enough you can almost make
a small ball in your hand, but it will always collapse as there is not enough
sticky material in it, but if you add the right quantity of cement and water (and
perhaps something else if required) it is easy to lay bricks.
Plaster sand is very fine sand but not as much as
bricklayer’s loams it does not stick together by itself, therefore, it will
stick together only when you add cement and water to it, this type of sand is
used to plaster the walls and can be used to lay concrete blocks it is ideal to
use this sand provided it is very fine, in this part of the world we call this Besser
sand.
River sand, or washed river sand is a type of sand coarser and
thicker than plaster sand, as the name suggests it comes from the river, in
this parts of the world because Brisbane river is salty water it is washed and
sieved, but it is possible to find deposit of this sand in some rivers that can
be used straight away, sometimes this
sand can be used by itself to lay a top layer on a fresh laid concrete, but its
use is mainly used to mix it with gravels to make concrete.
Gravel or gravels are small stones again these small stones
can be found in or near the rivers; in most places if there is proper supplier,
gravels are graded so one can order them as they are required, and this is what
we need to make good concrete. But if you happen to be in the middle of nowhere,
they don’t need to be graded properly to use for concrete and one could use a
mix of different size provided you know what you are doing. But one must be
careful that this ungraded building material is free from silt and organic
stuff.
Today of course building people rely more from the
specialized suppliers, and they order through these suppliers what they need. You
can even buy bags of ready mixed materials that you can use just by adding
water. These materials are good to use, if you have a small job to do, but they
become expensive to use if you have a large job.
What we have described above are the main materials required
to build most cement things, of course, you must know how to use them, and that
is what we are going to write next.
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(PHOTO MISSING) To view photos click on the link, Mix your own cement).
Since there is not enough room to describe
the cement properties under the photo above, let us describe it here; cement is
like the glue that when mixed with sand, gravels and other aggregates makes
these materials stick together. The word “cement” can be traced back to the
Romans, who called this “opus caementicum” to describe masonry that resembles
concrete. We dare say that the Romans used burned limestone which when you add
water turns into hydrated lime and also they used something called pumice that
was collected from some part on Vesuvius it was a sort of cement that when you
added water would become harder than if you just used lime, this is more or
less how I have been told. As you can see there are two main bonding materials
that can be used to make concrete and mortar.
In this retailer supply shed above there are
several ready to use cement product, so, beside bags Portland cement there are
bags of hydrated lime, ready bags of concrete blend already mixed with cement,
there is read to mix mortar and ready to mix plaster and other things. These
ready mixed materials become costly when you must use a lot of it.
So, the cheapest and best way is to mix your
own cement, or when the job is big then the best way is to order premixed
concrete. If you need mortar or plaster, you must mix your own from scratch or
pay the price of the bagged premixed materials.
Mixing your
own concrete from scratch.
Because I am an old tradesman, I have been asked a few times
the following from some friends.
We want to mix some concrete ourselves; can you please
explain us how to do that? We don’t have a mixer and we want to learn how to do
that using the tools that we have; we have a couple of shovels and buckets a
wooden float and some other small tools. We are a couple of strong blokes and
we do not mind doing hard-physical work, it will be a pleasure to do some
useful exercise, so, tell us how to mix concrete?
Okay, since you do not mind working hard, I will be glad to
tell you how to mix your concrete by hand. Now, let us assume that you have the
material on site, and that you are ready to mix your concrete. To mix concrete
by hand, you need a flat platform where you can mix your concrete, this platform
does not need to be made on purpose, all it is needed is a hard surface,
perhaps a slab of existing concrete can be helpful or anything at all, as long
as this surface is not loose, because you don’t want to mix the soil with your
concrete.
To make is easy, we must assume that the bloke that sold you
the building material, has sold and delivered some concrete blend. Now what is
concrete blend, you are wondering; so, let us explain, concrete blend is gravel
and river sand mixed together approximately two part of gravel and one part
river sand, so, you don’t have to mix them anymore, it is ready to use.
To make normal concrete you need to mix by volume six
containers of concrete blend to one container of Portland cement, depending on
the quality of the concrete blend this may vary, so what we do next; we know
that we need a lot of concrete, so, you measure say twelve bucket of concrete
blend and put that on our platform, then you measure two buckets of cement to
mix with the blend. These are the quantities to keep in mind, (6 to 1) this is
a small batch of concrete, and you can make it bigger or smaller, if you keep
that 6 to1 ratio. Sometimes this ratio may vary.
Now before you mix your cement with your blend; make sure
that everything is ready, because once you start this process you must continue
until you finish. Since everything is ready you can spread the cement on the
concrete blend, after doing that you take your shovels fill them up and start
turning your mixture around, by pushing the shovel under and turning it over,
you need to turn your mixture a couple of time; say first from A to B and then
from B to A, so, everything is in the same place, after doing that and you are
satisfied that your mixture is mixed even, you can make a well in the middle of
it, and add a bucket of water, if the water is absorbed quickly, then you know
that you must add more water, if a fair bit of water remains in the centre then
you can start folding the outside mixture in the middle, you can add some water
as required, but don’t get carried away with adding too much water, because you
need to add water bit by bit, you see this is one of those things that you
learn as you do it and not before.
You have done all that and now you have a heap of this
mixture half mixed; here again you take your shovel and turn your mixture from
A to B while sprinkling some water on it, you may need to do this a few times
sprinkling water and turning your concrete mixture from B to A and from A to B,
you need to do this until you have an even mixture that it is well mixed. Now
you have your concrete ready to place wherever you need to place it.
This is how mixing concrete was done in the old days, it was
a hard work and it was not as accurate as it is today with the ready mixed concrete
truck that can deliver concrete to your job whenever you need it, and all you
have to do is to lay your concrete slab, or whatever you need to do. Anyhow,
the description above, can be used if you are in the middle of nowhere, and you
need concrete.
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Learn the
art of mixing cement.
Learn to recognize and use the building materials when we
mix cement.
Now, that we have written what are the building materials, and
we have explained how to mix concrete by hand, this procedure can be applied to
mix mortar and plaster etc. We have also explained how you can recognize the
raw building materials.
You see, let us imagine that you need concrete, you live in
the middle of nowhere and you have only a few tools, but you now a faraway
place where you can go and buy Portland cement; you are not going to buy
anything else at that place, because it is too far, it will be costly to bring
it in, so, the rest of the concrete materials you are going to find near the
river banks. I know it is like going back in time a hundred years ago, but
there are parts of the world that are still that far back. Therefore, learning
how to recognize the basic building materials for making concrete, and then
mixing concrete by hand can still be useful today. So, we are writing these
articles, hoping we can help any do it yourself small owner builders.
Now, we have to add that what we are writing here is how we
have done these things, and we know they work, however, it is only our view,
and they work well in all minor jobs, but if you have large important jobs, you
must consult the local experts.
Now let us see how we mix concrete with a mixer.
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Mixing
concrete with a mixer.
Okay, let us make this clear, there may be
several ways how to mix you concrete; you can mix it on the ground, as we have described
above, you can mix concrete in a wheelbarrow, if you have a wheelbarrow with a
good tray, or you can mix it with a mixer which is helpful to have. But what
are the different procedures when you mix, in order to achieve the best result
with the least amount of time and work:
The greatest difference for mixing concrete and
other cement materials is mainly this: when you mix by hand you can achieve the
best result by mixing the materials with the cement before you add water, as
this helps to make a more even mixture quicker: But when you use the mixer you
don’t need to do that, in fact, you can have better and quicker result, by
following this procedure hereunder:
Start the mixer and put in the mixer some
water, approximately the proper amount to mix the whole batch, you know how
much water to use once you have made a few batches.
Now before we proceed to mix, let us talk
about the water amount. On building sites, it is near impossible to tell you
how much water you need exactly, since the materials you are using contains an
unknown quantity of water, therefore, the quantity of water varies, you see,
the wetter the materials are, the less water you need and vice versa if they
are dry.
Now, let us assume that because you are new
at doing this job, you are using a dry small bucket to measure the quantities
of the building materials; in this case you have gravel and river sand in
separate heaps, you know that this concrete is going to be mixed 6 to 1, but overall,
this batch you are going to mix 8 small buckets of gravel four of river sand
and two of Portland cement:
Now the quantities above are how the best and
strongest cement can be achieved, with a minimum of Portland cement used; very
likely these quantities are written in the specifications, if you have any
specification written, and the ready mix people use those amounts and have a
perfect concrete, because the concrete mixer will mix it well and as dry as
possible. But by experience on building sites, we use a bit more river sand and
a bit less gravel, as this makes it easier to work with overall.
Now let us go back to mix our concrete:
So, after you have poured the water into the
mixer, you put one single bucket of gravel and while the mixer turns put the
two small bucket of cement into the mixer, the cement in the mixer will
immediately mix in the water and the first bucket of gravel will make sure that
it does not stick to the mixer, because it will cut though any lumps easily,
now you add four buckets of river sand, and this again will mix very quickly
and become like a thick cream, all you have to do next is to add the other
seven bucket of gravel, once you have done that you only need to wait a little
bit for the mixer to mix it properly and your concrete is ready. Now all you must
do is to tip your concrete in a wheelbarrow and take it to the place you need
to concrete.
This is the quickest and best way to mix
concrete in a mixer, as I have done it for thousands of times, but I need to
say that on building sites, where there is plenty of cement to mix and the
workers have to try not to injury themselves, by lifting hundreds of bucket
full of material all day long, they use to measure the materials by the
shovelful, but you have to be an expert at doing that to get everything
measured right. I hope this description of how to mix concrete is clear enough.
Before we leave these concrete discussions,
we want to add more information; you see, concrete in itself is very strong in
compression, but is lacks strength under tension, so, to make concrete very
strong and last a very long time you need to use steel in the concrete; here is
a link that will help to understand some of these issues.
How to
Make Concrete Even Stronger: 6 Steps
(with Pictures)
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As we have said, we have split this article in two, so, we will continue to write how to mix mortar, plaster and cement topping in part two. See you soon.
To see more click on this link, Mix your own cement.
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