You can do it for small projects, three yards or less, the fenceman's way.
Get a good six cubic foot wheelbarrow. A good one, one of the blue ones at the box store that cost eighty dollars or so.
Put in five shovel fulls, I use a square point, of sand and gravel. Your supply yard usually will have what they call "remix". Remix is when they take even amounts of concrete sand and gravel and remix them. Some of the better supply yards will have two varieties of remix. One with three quarter rock and one with pea gravel. You want the three quarter.
If you can't get remix get even amounts of rock and sand. Again, I recommend three quarter unless you're cementing in posts where there isn't much clearance, then "peemix" is appropriate.
You can put in three sand, two gravel one layer and then two sand and three gravel the next. After you put in your first layer lay down a layer of Portland Cement. Try to layer out the cement as a layer, even as possible.
Another layer of aggregate, layer of portland, layer of aggregate, portland, and so on. If you're not familiar with moving a wheelbarrow then I suggest starting off with half wheelbarrow loads and then go heavier as your skill increases. A decent, not necessarily moral but decent, fenceman will grab ahold of a heaping wheelbarrow and put it where it needs to go and need only a bucket or two of bad words.
I use a D handle round point shovel. In fact I have one shovel usually on the trucks that will get somone slapped if they use it for anything but mixing. It's kept clean because if there's dirt or dried cement on it twenty six times that amount of new cement will stick to it when mixing. That's a bad word generator of the dimensions usually reserved for rude drivers.
Since a fence man has to sometimes do this all day long he's usually learned to let the shovel do the work. That entails using his whole body and not wearing out parts like arms and back.
When you get the wheelbarrow next to the place where you want concrete and not layers of sand, gravel, and portland. You take your roundpoint and make a bowl at the front of the wheelbarrow in the mix. Fill this bowl with water. Gently mix the materials with the water until you have concrete. If you've done it right you will have a couple of shovel fulls of concrete. Dispense this. Put more water, not too much, and repeat. Repeat until the wheelbarrow is empty.
There are some common mistakes made by rookies. The most common is trying to mix the whole wheelbarrow at once. That's twice to three times the work. Another is not using the front of the wheelbarrow and shovel together as a team.
The leading thigh should be put against the front of the wheelbarrow. The shovel is brought to and up the front of the wheelbarrow taking advantage of the contour. Shovel is then pushed backwards giving the material an additional stir.
When this is done properly the rookie will hurt all over that evening. There won't be any of this "leg hurts", "back hurts", "gut hurts", or even "head aches". It will be "I hurt all over more'n anywhere else."
I occasionally do it this way these days. But most times I get out my nine cubic foot Stone concrete mixer and the custom concrete bucket I have for the tractor. Even though I'm almost fifty six years old I can still put five, sometimes six yards through the mixer and into postholes in a day.
I'm not getting better as I get older. But I do think about it more. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
