Help! 3000 Pound Concrete Mix

[LWFrisk]

Harv

<font color="blue"> This could be fun! </font>

You got my wife's attention. (She had a back injury at work over two years ago and is usually in a lot of pain. They still have not found the problem.) Just previous to her injury, she got interested in making "things" from cement. She made some figurines, flower pots, etc.. She is very artistic in carving and molding things. Her pain has kept her from persuing her interests. Don't be surprised if she also answers your post as she too has become an avid reader of what you write. You are the topic of many of our conversations amoung family and friends. Many comments like "Harv could do it", or "How would Harv do it" or "Ask Harv, he would know how" come up all of the time.

She has viewed your photo album and is always saying "you could build me one like Harv made". She specially liked your flower pot that you made out of the round ball and the rocks that had planters in them.

Here is what the Pole Base looks like this morning in the rain. The gray covers are Electrical Boxes. I plann on putting a spot light to display the flag, a street number on the street side and a flood light toward the house.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

I like your choice of stone. We see some of that style out here. It has the "no mortar" look which ain't bad.

Check around amongst your acquaintances and business contacts to find if you have someone that cores concrete etc. If you don't then you're facing either having a professional service do it, formula is diameter times depth times dollar amount, cut some holes in some of your larger stones for holding vases. Or you can rent a wet drill and the sizes of bits you want.

What is interesting for me about coring is how the bits have to have different diamond content for the different hardness of stone or concrete. If you have a bit with a too coarse a cut rate then it won't do squat on a really hard surface. And if you use a too fine a cut rate on a soft stone it will fill up and not cut. It's comparable to using a rip blade to cut plywood or cutting studs with a plywood blade.

Let's pretend you use your stacked stone. But the boss lady would like to have a couple of plants on each side and maybe two to three on the front, just for grins you understand.

The stone doesn't like impact drilling. It isn't like granite who can take an impact drill and dance with it all day for fun and then wonder what's up for after dinner. So masonary bits with just water and a regular drill is the safest way to drill for pins in that kind of stone.

Pins? you ask. Let's pretend you have seven large stones drilled for vases or pots. You want them to protrude out from the rock wall and just stand there looking good, mostly because no one else in the neighborhood has such a thing, probably the best reason in the world to do something.

So very carefully you take the edge that's going against the concrete and you drill three--eighths or half inch holes into the side of your rock about two inches deep. You put rebar or all thread rods into the holes with about two or three inches sticking out. I like to use a hydraulic cement like quick rock, pour stone, etc as an adhesive to keep the pins in place.

When you've got your stone built up to where the boss lady would like to have a planter stone placed you use the protuding pins to mark the concrete. You drill matching holes and use hydraulic cement again to attach your planter stone to the wall.

It's a lot of extra work for just a little effect. But down the road when you walk out and see a nice clay pot sitting in the rock work with moss roses or some other gorgeous flowered plant dripping down looking absolutely gorgeous, well, it wasn't really that much work at all. And it is the only one on the block. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

And it wouldn't take too much to take the principles I've laid out to disguise your light for the flag with the same kind of technique. A small halogen low voltage spot on three sides just coming out of nowhere would be a very special look.

Like I said, this could be fun.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

This boss lady enthusiastically agrees! We've got about 10 large landscape boulders around the yard as well as Leo's flagpole base, and I've always wanted to have them sprouting plants from the top or sides. Leo's going to be real busy drilling with his rotohammer drill.............hehehe
At least I'm not asking him to dig more holes for a while, right?

 

[LWFrisk]

My friend Mark Owen was working across the street with his big backhoe so he stopped over an put the flag pole in the sleeve base. The attached photo is of the Pole, the backhoe, Mark, his helper and I lowering the pole into the sleeve. Next post is of the pole setting up straight.

The pole weighs less than 100 pounds, but it was to high for my John Deere 420 and boom pole to reach. When I tried to approach it straight on (30 foot of pole attached straight out in front of the buket and attached to the boom pole) and curl it up with the bucket, the left rear wheel would start to lift -- time for a heavier tractor.

 

[LWFrisk]

The Pole is standing straight and proud. As soon as the final anchoring is complete, it will be lighted and proudly carry our flag. I will post more photos when I get the new stacking brick veneer in place.

 

[Spencer]

Now thats a flag pole! Did you check to see if there are any ordinances regarding height in your area?

 

[19th_VA]

You kiddin me? He lives in California where the regulators have regulators! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[CTyler]

Noooooooo....Mr. regulator thats not a flag pole. Thats just the holder for the boom pole on my tractor /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[LWFrisk]

I had some very bad news tonight. My friend, Mark Owen, the guy that helped me raise the Flagpole with his Backhoe was killed in a trench cavein at 2:00 today. He was working on the footings for a new house across the street the day we set the pole up. I stopped by and asked him for some help, he stopped on the way home and did it for me. Didn't want pay for doing it. Why does it have to happen to the nice guys. Here is a link to the news link that covered the accident
News Coverage

The attached photo my wife took of Mark while we were raising the pole.

 

[Rick Jay]

Leo,

Sorry to hear about the loss of your friend. This is a very sad story. I will keep him and his family and friends in my prayers.

~Rick