My new client and Quarry update

[nativewolf]

Ramon that looks great, you sure needed the space!  

[Ljohnsaw]

You may have already stated this, but is that beam a ridge beam? As in the center of your new shed?

[teakwood]

yes sir, that is the ridge beam of this structure. now i'm in a hurry to get the roof up and the floor poured so it can harden for 2 weeks. i have till 15th march to get all my bought lumber from a neighbor company here to my storage, still 3 triaxle truckloads there.
then this building will have 2 possible outcomes; one, i make a small side roof from the ridge beam down so it stops the rain, maybe 4foot long, just freehanging there.
second, and this would be the better option, extend the whole structure with another rafter length and make another pillar structure to support the second side. this will be pretty cheap compared to the first build and would double the roof area. As a multimillionaire friend of mine says to me, you need to destruct the old house and level all this hill to gain space and then make a additional cabin, a pool, a barbeque area and a rancho, ufff. that was the plan since 10 years but easy for him to say! 
maybe i have a mad moment next year and go on with the building, it would make a lot of sense.
and as Wyatt @nativewolf always likes to spend my money and advised me to spend my winters here in CR if i ever go back to live in Switzerland this would probably be a good plan

there is this ugly old house which i actually not use and its on a small hill, i could cut 4m of the hill and would gain 1000m2 of flat area between my house and the sawmill area. but i would need to put water and electrical services into ditches underground

[teakwood]

Roof is done and today we start with the floor concrete. had to put in a drainage pipe so the rainwater behind the new structure can flow away underground

[teakwood]

2 slabs done, 2 more to go. this week i will have a second helper to speed things up and hopefully we're able to finish all the concrete work. will make another concrete pad in front of the kiln because in rainseason the forklift sinks and its hard to steer



this teaktree is the only one i grew on my own from 10 seeds they gave me and only this one came alive, so i planted it behind my house. i will never cut this one, i hope to see this tree when i'm 75.
20years old and a pretty big boy already, 24"

[barbender]

That is incredible growth!

[doc henderson]

Hey Ramone, who is the man in the pic with you?

[teakwood]

My best friend (also Swiss) has a Hotel lodge near me and he called me, there is an older gentlemen here from the same area you were and he says that he is family from your grandpa's brother   so i went there and had some beers with them, turns out that the family connection is so far away that it doesn't even count anymore, but was an interesting fella and i invited him the next day to see my operation.

[mudfarmer]

Looks very nice and you are making fast progress! Two weeks to deadline? You got this 💪💪

[Ljohnsaw]

Nice big mixer! Do you have a good source for your aggregate? 

Mixer looked like it would hold 3 buckets of gravel, 2 buckets of sand and one bucket of Portland.

[teakwood]

This mixer is exactly good for one bag of cement. it holds 6 buckets of gravel, 6 buckets of sand and 50kg of cement. that gives a ratio of 300kg cem per m3 which is a normal construction concrete
 i add water reducing cemicals  

[doc henderson]

If done by hand, you should get some big arms.  take care of your back.

[Ljohnsaw]

3:3:1  Wow, that's a lot of sand! I've always done 3:2:1

[beenthere]

Suspect teakwood has had good luck with his mix being as he has poured a LOT of concrete in this location. Prolly finishes up well, and smooth to trowel a nice surface. 

[teakwood]

yes doc i know, back is already worn from my years in construction, my worker has also a bad back from doing farm and machete work for 45 years, i send him to physiotherapy. we all use back belts, they help alot.

yes i did alot of concrete work in my life, i entered construction apprentiship with 16, 3 years of work and study for being a construction/concrete/ bricklaying/ rebars/ formwork worker (i have a license for this profession) we did big buildings back in Switzerland. Here it's alot slower and much harder process as we do small pours all by hand. this little mixer made at least 800 bags of cement/ concrete for me in the last 15 years.

The Floor is done, only did the area where i will store lumber so the forklift  works well. left entrance pillar is done too and today we pour the kiln slab

[doc henderson]

well, it is impressive to see what shear willpower and hard work can do.  We have it easy with a big truck and a slab is done in 2 hours.  carry on!  

[teakwood]

That should do it for the next 50 years, that slab is around 8" thick for a 4to forklift, i tend to overdue stuff

[teakwood]

That was the last Pour and i'm glad that the concrete work is done. Always had a hard time to park a pallet of lumber in front of the 4sider for processing. i will still build a small roof over this area

[Don P]

You do very nice concrete and look at that steel reinforcement work! I have the mixer loaded this morning and an inspection before we can have "fun". For us he is mostly looking to make sure my footings are big and deep enough for winter and that the ground is hard. The ground is hard . I sure like your system better, we've been ready for 2 days and have been back in the woods sawing while waiting for inspection.

[Firewoodjoe]

Very nice. It always is teakwood. I have some concrete work this year to. Soon I'm told. Kids have been playing basketball in sand for two years 😂 
Now they know how dad grew up. 

[nativewolf]

It all looks great Ramon.  Too bad you had to use the mixer and not a truck.  Seems like a business opportunity.  

[teakwood]

Thanks guys, i do my best.

Before i started building here i did some research. A concrete truck coming from the nearest fabric, which is about 2h away, would need to add so much retarder to the mix because of the heat we have. so the quality would be questionable. 1m3 was around 450$   , so i did the math and came to the conclusion that i could produce 1m3 for 225$ and i'm way more flexible with my own small mixer. I bought this mixer together with a friend at 300$ each, 15years ago. 

[barbender]

I poured a slab last fall. Started with a small mixer. Now I've made a lot of mud in years past with a mixer, but it's been a while. I borrowed this one and it had some issues- I should've looked it over better before I committed to using it! After some frustration, I mixed all the material together in the middle of my driveway with the skid steer. It worked pretty well😁

[Ljohnsaw]

Teakwood,
Any mix on site trucks? If not, there's an opportunity!

[beenthere]

Have seen concrete mixers for skid steers that look quite handy and efficient, being that one can move from sand pile to stone pile to water and then move to the pour site. Cuts out a lot of labor, but that may not be a problem for some jobs. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2kwKJHn0zo